December 29, 2009

me in your corner

The recent spate of kolachi-baking has led to thoughts of my Polish gramdma, the only relative I ever truly loved. She baked me things. She spoke hardly any English. What's not to love?

According to our parents, Grandma was in a perpetual state of dying. Every Easter, we made the trip to her decrepit neighborhood in Sharon, PA because "Your grandmother is getting old. This is probably her last Easter. Get your butt in the car." I heard that speech only a half dozen times, but my older siblings claim that that it went on for decades.

And so after the long drive, we would arrive at grandma's house and trudge single-file up the stairs to her back door, lining up to receive the worst part of the trip: sloppy old-person kisses on the mouth. Grandma would be cooking in her kitchen, see us, and spring to action, her gelatinous lips coming at us like flapping gator jaws.

"Linda!" she would greet the oldest. "You too skeeny!" Smooch.

"Mort! You too skeeny!" Smooch.

"Nadine! You too skeeny!" Smooch.

"Julie! You too skeeny!" Smooch.

"John...you look good." Smooch.

Christ, I've got to lose some weight, I'd think.

Our interactions were mostly over a card table. We played a lot of a card game called "Casino," which most of my girlfriends have been forced to learn since. The beauty, of course, was that a limited vocabulary was needed. What little Polish I know is all card terminology.

"It's going to be mine."

"You're out of turn."

"Suck it, Grandma."

Even at 212, Grandma was a sharp player, and one day when she was soundly thrashing us, I got frustrated and went to watch TV. My dad appeared five minutes into The Price Is Right. "Your grandmother isn't going to be around much longer," he said. "You sure you don't want to play cards with her?"

Groaning, I got up and got my ass soundly pummeled some more. Grandma was elated. Cackling, even. And then the very next day, she died.

We were back in Columbus when the news came. I remember Mort grumbling about having to do that drive again, but I was focused on my near miss. I had narrowly avoided guilt of epic proportions.

They asked me to be a pall-bearer, which in retrospect seems an unusual request of an 11 year-old, but I was honored. And so we carried her casket from the hearse to the church where she'd spent so much of her time. Where she'd been when her heart finally gave out. None of us were surprised she'd died there. She very nearly lived there, no doubt praying about her grandchildren's eating disorders and for her endless streak of hot cards to continue unabated.

Holy shit, look at those stairs. There were a couple dozen of them leading up into the church. My skinny 11 year-old arms strained beneath the torque of the coffin, until finally they could take it no more. I dropped my corner. We heard a dull ker-THUNK inside the casket. We looked at one another, horrified.

I'd evaded epic guilt for three days. It was a nice run.

posted by john at 08:27 AM  •  permalink

September 14, 2009

ass backward

I don't know if Nelson still thinks I'm the 12 year old kid he first met, but for whatever reason, my brother-in-law is incapable of following my suggestions. If I've been somewhere before and say it's thataway, he'll go the opposite direction every single time. So was it when we were parking to tailgate.

"Remember to park head-in in the parking space."

"I wanna be able to get out later," he argued.

"This is how it's done, though. Otherwise we have to carry all that shit to the front of the car."

And then he parked and we carried all that shit to the front of the car. While our fellow fans all rested their drinks in the aft sections of their vehicles, we watched ours slide down the hood. Several people commented on our retardation. "It's called tailgating for a reason, you know," said one.

Nelson laughed goofily. "Yeah! Can you tell we're doing this for the first time?"

"Speak for yourself, motherfucker," I growled.

"What's that?"

I pointed at Nelson. "I'd just like the record to show that he is not a blood relative."

"Yeah, well, I wouldn't be doing a whole lot of bragging about my blood relatives if I was you." Touche, Nelson.

That got me thinking. "Say, Nelson," I said a little later. "I didn't have any choice but to be born into my stupid family, but you're a mystery to me. You opted in. Can you describe your decision process to marry into this pack of wolves?"

"I didn't know her well enough," he replied without the slightest trace of a smile.

posted by john at 09:48 AM  •  permalink

August 18, 2009

one evening. two of the worst sounds ever.

This post is dedicated to Frank Frank. Crunch.

• • •

I didn't start dating until I was 17. Once I found a girl willing to make out with me, I feverishly sought to make up for lost time. She came to my house for lunch. I went to her house in that sweet-spot between school and when her mother came home. My girlfriend would wait for me outside of work at night. On non-working nights, I would watch TV with her and her mom, and we would impatiently wait Mom out, sneaking glances at her ever-heavier eyelids.

It was on one such night that Mom finally went to bed, and Celeste and I devoured one another's mouths until they hurt, then made out some more. It was a delirious session, from what I recall, and it would probably be continuing today had we not heard the following scream come bounding down the stairs:

"CELESTE, IT'S THREE O'CLOCK IN THE BLOODY MORNING!"

I have no recollection of dashing to my car. I think I teleported, in a blink, like the title character in "I Dream of Jeannie." It was a snowy night in Columbus, and I drove as fast as I safely could, for I knew probable death awaited me at home, and I wanted to shave precious minutes off my infraction in order to avoid certain death. And then red white and blue lights flashed behind me. How patriotic.

I pulled over in a grocery parking lot, and the cop scolded me for my curfew violation like only suburban cops can. That, though, I could live with. "I'm going to have to call your mother and have her escort you home," he concluded. That, I couldn't.

When Mom showed up in her robe and slippers, she looked as amused as someone standing in the street and watching her house burn down. My mind raced to come up with an excuse. C'mon, brain, don't fail me now. Any excuse will do. Right now. Here we go. Any second now.

Stupid brain.

It came time for Mom to follow me home, and, my rear window completely obscured by ice, I glanced to my right and saw the cruiser and my mom's car safely to that side. I backed up. Crunch.

I had backed up into a newly arrived, second police cruiser.

posted by john at 08:57 AM  •  permalink

July 27, 2009

fair play

I haven't attended a family function in 14 years. I've seen family members, yes, but I haven't seen 'em all at once since my sister's wedding. On holidays, they knife each other without me. And then they burn up my phone, each lobbying me to believe their version of events.

To summarize, I detest family functions. Always have. My relatives' behavior toward one another is contemptuous and reprehensible. When I was a kid and I would blow out my birthday candles, I wished that I would never have to see the assembled people again. And then I became an adult, and I damned near made sure that wish came true. Fact: since I was in high school, my family has met exactly three people from my life. And it ain't because I'm ashamed of my friends and girlfriends.

It was my kindest sister that was getting married 14 years ago, and I didn't really see how I could blow her wedding off. I said I would attend, and then I begged my friend Tammy to accompany me. Having heard horror stories about my heinous family for years, she agreed to be my wingman. I introduced her as my "friend," which of course was interpreted as "secret wife." They descended on her, regaling her with stories about me.

"Like this one time, we were sleeping on the floor at our grandmother's house, and John stage-dove off the bed and landed on our cousin's Jimmy's nuts and started an inter-cousin war that still pisses people off..."

"Once after I got eye drops to dilate my pupils, we went into the bathroom to see if I could see in the dark, and when I said I couldn't see anything, John sucker-punched me as hard as he could in the gut..."

"We were playing soccer and I had an easy shot on goal and John knocked me 5 yards out of bounds and screwed up my spine for life..."

"When we were in our Aunt Helen's funeral procession, John gave the finger to our grieving cousins..."

"He tried to decapitate this kid Timmy with a hammer on a rope."

"One time he used a sewing needle to sabotage an entire pack of condoms..."

When I couldn't deny the stories, Tammy smirked at me smugly. Now they were sure she was my secret wife.

posted by john at 08:07 AM  •  permalink

June 11, 2009

the acid test

My mom, as I've written previously, was a complete flake. Whatever vapid trend there was, she was right there, with bells on, four years later. Turquoise. Wheat germ. Disco. The healing power of crystals. However embarrassed you were of your mother, I assure you that it paled next to my own apoplexy.

My god, the self-help books. That's all there was to read in my house. Those, and Prevention magazine. There was relatively mainstream stuff like Jonathan Livingston Seagull, but Mom gravitated toward mystical stuff like The Psychic Side of Sports.

She had no interest in sports.

For one Christmas, I agonized over what to get Mom. I was in the bookstore, and I sarcastically thought "I could just go to the freaking Self Help section, pick a book at random, and she'll love it." And then I realized this cynical theory simply must be tested. I walked to the section. I closed my eyes, twirled and pointed. Thud.

"DEATH" said the huge yellow letters on the book's black cover.

"Jeeeeeeeezus. That's one tough sell to someone with cancer," I thought. "Talk about the acid test." And thus, on Christmas morning Mom unwrapped this treatise on the implications of an afterlife.

Within days, she was excitedly recommending it to her friends.

posted by john at 08:18 AM  •  permalink

May 12, 2009

late for my funeral

It could have been any given Sunday when I was a kid. Six uncomfortably attired family members would be piled into the station wagon, awaiting the seventh so that we could go to Mass. The seventh was always Julie. It was hard to get mad at her dawdling, what with my hating church and all, but then again she was pissing my parents off, and that was all of our problem.

My dad would yell for her out the window and lean on the horn. Mom would berate her thoughtlessness. And then Julie would finally appear, close the front door, and vacantly stroll down the sidewalk in a direction that was only nominally car-ish. She would pause and reflect on something known only to her. Sometimes she would reverse field and re-enter the house, which would send my parents into orbit.

"I swear to God, Julie," my mom invariably snapped whenever Julie finally climbed into the car, "You're going to be late for my funeral!"

Happened every single week.

CUT TO:
EXTERIOR - CEMETERY - DAY

It's ten years later, and we kids, emotionally exhausted from our mother's funeral, are standing beside her coffin. Julie somehow hasn't completed the trip from the church, so it's only four of us. The casket is about to be lowered into the ground, and the priest is conducting a graveside service. He hands Linda, the eldest, a Catholic maraca thing and instructs her to spritz the coffin once and pass the maraca to the next sibling. And so she does. And so does my brother. When it's Nadine's turn, we become aware of Julie's approach. We watch her stroll aimlessly through the cemetery, pausing to reflect on the occasional tombstone or butterfly, walking in a direction that was only nominally Mom-ish.

When she finally deigns to arrive, I hand her the maraca and tell her to spritz the casket. And boy, does she ever. She pumps the maraca with urgent, repeated thrusts, as if Mom's casket is on fire. She drenches the thing.

It's at this point that I hear Linda stifle a laugh. That's pretty much when I lose it. Soon, four kids burying their mother are on the verge of exploding in laughter, each of us thinking of the same Sunday morning ritual. It is perfect, really. It is exactly the service Mom would have chosen for herself. It is oddly beautiful. I cry for the first time.

posted by john at 07:02 AM  •  permalink

April 29, 2009

drawing dead

One of the last times I saw my dad, we met in Vegas, where he suggested we stay in the Westward Ho motel and take the city bus to Fremont street, where we ate $4.99 buffets at casinos that you've never heard of. Yep. That pretty much tells you everything you need to know about that Vegas trip, save one detail.

We were playing poker at the Plaza, long before TV poker became the fad that launched me out of my poker rooms. I wore a hat so that people would be less likely to surmise that matching hairlines = relatives. Why? Because we colluded when we played. When one of us hit a hand, the other helped him pump up the pot by re-raising. At day's end, we split the winnings. It's not cheating, exactly, but it's close enough to cheating where one uses words like "exactly."

Today, in the eight chair, my father was mostly a spectator. In the two chair, I was on a roll. I was boss at this table, and my luck just ran and ran for hours. My primary victim was one of those people you wish wouldn't sit down at poker tables, the person who obviously cannot afford to lose any money but into whom you must bet anyway. He was a poor player, constantly a bit behind me, and I pounded his weak hands. Clearly a local, he was an older guy, maybe 65, whose skin and clothes were completely sun-drenched. His withered straw cowboy hat was frayed, as were his faded shirt and jeans. What teeth remained were chaw-yellow. His most distinguishing feature, though, was that his left eye had been through some sort of calamity. The puncture hole was just to the left of center, and the eye had long ago shriveled and turned purple-black. He made no attempt to hide the injury.

As I squeezed his chip stack dry, he grew more and more agitated. I blissfully couldn't understand what he was mumbling. And finally, my dad and the dealer called Security, who escorted the man out of the casino. He kicked and screamed like only the psychotically broken can, spitting foam in my direction.

The dealer then explained to me that the man had threatened to slit my throat, among other body parts, and that my dad had seen him fondling something strapped above his ankle. Wow. You try playing on after that. I did, with my dad literally watching my back, but my streak was over.

That night, uncomfortable with the possibility that if the man was staying in a Vegas motel, it was probably the Westward Ho, I resolved to always price him out of my hotel in the future.

posted by john at 07:39 AM  •  permalink

April 08, 2009

ellomenopee

I was the youngest child in my family, and given that, my siblings took delight in messing with my understanding of the world. Escalators, for instance. Their perpetually replenishing stairs eventually filled the basement at JC Penney's, and a man had to come clean them all out. He was called an Escavator, which for years made plenty sense. So too did Grandma's hard attack. As for ellomenopee, I thought that was one letter of the alphabet until I was 27.

The oldest, Linda, ran screaming from our mother's presence when I was eight, and since I lived with Mom, I have few memories of Linda. One memory bubbled up during a trip to the grocery yesterday, though. We were driving through Ohio farmlands, presumably on a trip to see our grandmother, when we passed some cows. It was then that Linda sought to educate me.

"John, do you know where chocolate milk comes from?"

I had no idea.

"Brown cows."

I nodded gratefully, feeling stupid for not having known, or at least not having guessed, something this obvious.

"Then where does skim milk come from," I asked Sensei.

"Skinny cows, stupid."

I just noticed this product for the first time and emailed her the photo.

posted by john at 09:15 AM  •  permalink

April 02, 2009

and i actually wonder how people search on "massive bowel obstruction" and end up on my site

And so it's come to this. So desperate am I for things to write about, I'm back to last June in my ideas queue.

My mentally ill sister was staying here, yapping my ear off. She's missing whatever gene allows a speaker to notice that the listener is standing on the roof, contemplating whether the two-story fall would kill him or just maim him and make him even more of a captive audience.

Watching TV, talking on the phone, pretending I'd fallen asleep—none of these tactics worked. I came to think of her as The Claw. Desperate, I finally I pretended I had food poisoning and could not leave the bathroom. I was prepared to stay in there for days. I thought this plan bulletproof, but it didn't so much as slow the munitions. She stood outside the door and loudly yammered away about all the familial and governmental conspiracies allied against her. I silently vowed to join them.

I reminded her that I was really sick and could use some privacy, which bought me no more than five minutes before she thought of something so dire that it trumped even diarrhea. I resorted to moaning and plopping wet wads of toilet paper into the toilet. No effect.

R E W A R D

$1000 and everlasting gratitude to anyone who can prove I was adopted.

posted by john at 02:14 AM  •  permalink

March 18, 2009

the grandma diet

"We're going to see your grandmother this weekend," my parents would declare to a chorus of groans. "Hey, knock it off. She's getting old now. This might be the last time you ever see her."

I can't speak for the older kids, but I heard that particular speech at least two dozen times. I didn't want my grandmother to die, particularly, but I sure was getting tired of having her imminent death used against me.

She lived in a ghetto in Sharon, PA, which doesn't top anyone's list of travel destinations. Nevertheless, several times a year, we would pile out of the station wagon and trudge up the steps to see our perpetually dying grandmother.

Grandma was straight out of central casting. A Polish immigrant in the 20s, she still dressed like she had just stepped off the boat. I would peek in the window and see her in her shawl, boiling the flavor out of some kielbasa. She would peek back through her 30 year-old glasses, then exclaim something in Polish. I don't know what she said. I only know a little Polish, and it's all related to card-playing. I concluded that she was professing her gratitude for my having given up a weekend of watching cartoons.

Arrivals at Grandma's house were ritualistic. We would enter single file, by age, which made me the last of seven. Grandma would greet us with revolting, sloppy old-person kisses and an assessment of our body mass index.

"Linda!" she would say to my eldest sister. "You too skeeny! Eat, eat!"

"Mort! You too skeenny too! They don't feed you?"

"Nadine! Julie! You both too skeeny! Oh my lord, eat!"

"John! Oh so skeeny!" And then she would shove a Polish pastry in my mouth. And so it went, every time. No matter how fat one of us got—we're Slavic, after all—there was always Grandma to make us feel better.

One day when we arrived, the processional went as always. Nadine and Julie has just been pronounced emaciated waifs, and Grandma turned her attention to me.

"John!" She looked me up and down. "You look...good."

Jesus Christ! I thought. I've really let myself go! And thus did I begin the first diet of my life.

posted by john at 08:26 AM  •  permalink

February 17, 2009

family ties

There comes a point in every one of my relationships where the stories about my family serve to pique, not diminish, her desire to meet them.

"I want to meet them," she'll say. "I wonder what they would think of me..?"

I can tell from her tone that she thinks she'll be different. That I'm somehow exaggerating. Why perhaps, on beholding her spectacularness, they'll even clutch her to their bosom. She doesn't realize, of course, that there is no bosom. There's only a cremation furnace where a heart should be. My family peddles rage and hate the way others hand out love and awkwardness. Cruelty is their bloodsport of choice. To be thrust into it without having grown up in it is like learning to swim by being tossed into 20-foot waves.

Yet no amount of metaphoria dissuades the cocksure girlfriend from wanting to meet them. "Over my dead body, " I say. I haven't introduced a girlfriend to my collective family since high school. One, the AW, did meet a single sister who was visiting. To the AW my sister said, "I'm supposed to invite you to come home and meet the family."

"Oh, how nice!" the AW replied.

"It's a trap," I sighed as I drove. "They're trying to do an end-run around me. Same shit, different decade. They know they won't get anywhere with me. Did this come from Maria?"

"Yes," my sister replied.

"That particular knifing is not happening."

"I know."

We drove on in silence. "What just happened here?" the AW asked.

"I just saved you thousands of dollars in unsuccessful therapy. You're welcome."

The day wore on, and my sister got me caught up on all the family dynamics. At any given point, such as at this writing, I have no idea who's not speaking to whom. Sometimes people aren't speaking to me and I don't even realize it. So that's what my sister was briefing me about. It went for hours. Hatred, envy, rage, incredibly aggressive acts of cruelty. The AW heard all the crap some say about me. I'm on drugs. I'm a drug dealer. My house isn't really my house; it's a rental I use to fool my sister. The AW herself isn't my girlfriend; she's a friend who's posing, again to fool my sister. The list goes on and on.

That night, when she and I lay in bed, a shell-shocked AW stared at the ceiling. "I don't ever want to know these people."

Welcome.

posted by john at 07:50 AM  •  permalink

December 16, 2008

best and brightest

"Your sister is taking photos of the dog," said my brother-in-law. "It will be a few minutes."

I slumped in my chair and waited for the dog's headshot to be perfected. I had called my eldest sister to discuss our middle sister, the one with the mental problems. And discuss her we did. And we also talked about the dog, the weather, the Buckeyes. She talked about her Secret Santa exchange at work. She bought her designated recipient a Browns mug, "even though I'm a Steelers fan." This was news to me. Her husband is a Steelers fan, but her? Never once heard her mention it.

"If you were really a Steelers fan, you wouldn't buy a Browns mug," I replied. "You'd get them a Steelers mug."

"Huh. That's exactly what my husband said."

And so what passes for witty repartee in my family ran its course, and as I got off the phone, my thoughts drifted where they go after every phone call home.

My siblings are fantastically stupid and uninteresting. They are inarticulate, ill-read citizens of an exceedingly small world. I say things like "[Our ill sister] needs some structure in her life. Without her husband and job to occupy her active mind, she's got way too much time to count the conspiracies against her." and they're baffled by abstractions like "structure" and "the."

"What do you mean?" they invariably ask.

This is what vexes me after every phone call: the lowest IQ among us five kids is 127. The human average is 100. Just how monumentally stupid is the average person if these mouth-breathers so definitively trounce their IQ score? My siblings can't be exceptional. They just can't.

Time to add another lock to the doors.

posted by john at 06:43 AM  •  permalink

July 08, 2008

physics is our friend

Perhaps it's because my dad and I connected so few times that I remember this so vividly. We were all on his boat: him, me, my idiot stepmother, and my stepsister Erin, who was my age. At 15, Erin had already been arrested more times than I can accurately remember. 10 times? 12? 30? I don't know.

Despite her predilection for kicking my dad in the nuts, I hated her. The day we met, at their home in L.A., 10 year old Erin had put cigarette butts in the bathroom toilet. "LOOK AT WHAT JOHN DID!" she screamed gleefully. My dad glared into the toilet, then at Erin. "Man, did you ever just try to frame the wrong kid in the wrong way." And then he beat the crap out of her.

My relationship with Erin remains unchanged to this day.

So anyway, five years later, we're speeding along on Dad's boat, and Erin is reclined on its stern, lying just above the props. Her mother screamed at her. "Erin! Get down! If you fall off you'll hit the propellers!"

Erin rolled her eyes. "Duh. If I fall off, the boat will just move away and I'll miss the propellers."

My stepmother turned to my aeronautical engineer father. "Is that true?"

My dad took a beat longer than I'd expected. "Yes. Yes, that's right. The boat will move away."

And then he squinted at me, subtley shaking his head in the international sign for Don't you dare say a word.

• • •

I just told that story to Allie. "That's the first story about your father where I see any of you in him," she said, not particularly meaning it as a compliment.

posted by john at 07:47 AM  •  permalink

June 11, 2008

penetration

We'd parked my car in the casino parking lot when my sister found Courtney's jacket in the back seat. Courtney is five foot nothing and maybe 100 pounds, and her jacket is a hand puppet. My sister asked whose it was, and I told her it was "my friend Courtney's." She tried to put it on. It slid no farther than her bicep. We laughed, left the jacket in the car, and proceeded into the casino.

"YOU'RE GOING TO HAVE PROBLEMS WITH THAT ONE," she declared in a full-on yell.

"What do you mean?"

"WELL, YOU KNOW ABOUT SMALL WOMEN, DON'T YOU?"

Oh no. Please don't. Not in the crowded lobby of the cas—

"THEIR VAGINAS ARE SO SMALL YOU MIGHT NOT EVEN BE ABLE TO PENETRATE, AT LEAST NOT WITHOUT HURTING HER."

I was stunned numb. "Well, I've had my whole fist up there, so I don't think it's gonna be any problem," I replied in my imagination three minutes later when I finally thought of a response.

posted by john at 07:23 AM  •  permalink

June 10, 2008

self-diagnosis

I actually did perk up once during my sister's droning. She diagnosed our sister Nadine as having narcissistic personality disorder, and her definition was something along the lines of "everything's about her." I knew that wasn't right. I'd looked up narcissism a few months back, when I was still with Sarah.

Good times.

As I re-read the list of criteria, this time to my sister, I commented that they applied to most members of our family. "Take this. 'Is often envious of others or believes others are envious of him or her.'"

"That's totally Nadine!" my sister shrieked. "She's totally envious of me!"

"Did you, um, hear the part where, um..."

• • •

For the record, here's the list.

• overreacts to criticism, becoming angry or humiliated
• has a grandiose sense of self-importance
• is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love
• believes that he or she is "special" and unique
• requires excessive admiration
• has a sense of entitlement
• is interpersonally exploitative
• lacks empathy
• is often envious of others or believes others are envious of him or her
• shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes

posted by john at 07:07 AM  •  permalink

June 09, 2008

seven hours to go

In one obvious sense, I feel bad for saying that my mentally ill sister is driving me crazy. But that's a recessive gene. Mostly, I feel truly sorry for myself. The acoustic assault is unrelenting. She requires no participation on my part. She just winds herself up and vroom, off to the races. From the moment my door opens in the morning, I'm bombarded with minutiae about people I do not know. I hear about their flaws and her grievances against them. This is my sister's sole hobby nowadays: she confidently diagnoses other people's addictions and/or psychoses. I can't wait to hear mine.

The nearby casino is a godsend. There, I can read a book at the bar while she pinpoints the dealer as a manic-depressive who is trying to screw her over. Yesterday we went there for the fourth time during this visit, and we stayed for six hours. Every hour there was an hour I wasn't with her alone, so I got increasingly giddy. I told the bartender, who had been giving me an endless supply of Diet Cokes all weekend, about my scheme.

Her eyes flashed with recognition, then she laughed. During her smoke breaks all weekend, the dealers had been complaining about a particularly loud, obnoxious player who was driving them insane with weird pronouncements and an unremitting droning about herself. And oh yes, she was visiting her brother this weekend.

The poor dealers. Now I'm feeling guilty again.

Ah. There. It passed again.

posted by john at 09:01 AM  •  permalink

June 06, 2008

shitty weekend

I write you this from the toilet. I say this not to illustrate my vileness, but to convey that I'm hiding behind the only door in my house that locks.

My older sister has a long history of mental illness, and things aren't getting better. When she stepped off her plane yesterday, she was incoherent and slurring her words badly. "My god. She's an invalid," I thought and still think. The slurring was the result of an anti-psychotic med, and the med was for any number of maladies. Paranoid schizophrenia, paranoid something-else disorder, post-traumatic stress, mania, bipolar disorder and more were mentioned yesterday as concrete facts. Doctors who disagree with her own diagnosis are crooks who just want to keep her sick. Stewardesses, ferry guys, cashiers, Mexicans and George Bush are all trying to screw her. When the flashing falls down on her house, it's our sister's Nadine's fault. Nadine is insanely jealous of the house, you seen, and we're 100% certain it's her. I know this because I heard this story a half-dozen times yesterday. Now multiply that by a dozen stories, and you have me hiding on the toilet.

The worst part is that my sister is a very lonely person. Small wonder. Now that she has a captive audience, she never shuts up. The monologue of recycled stories, blackjack rules (she called the nearby casino six times yesterday to ask questions), and recycled stories is unremitting. Her voice is a bona fide dentist's drill. If I'm in bed, she appears next to it. Blah blah blah. Rather, BLAH BLAH BLAH. We don't use our indoor voice. If I'm watching TV or reading, she doesn't even ask for my attention first. She just starts droning an an incredible volume, then angrily demands to know why I'm not paying attention.

How come time never stands still like this when a really hot chick is staying here?

• • •

Prior to writing the above, I'd already splattered my bare legs while plunging her shitty toilet water this morning. After writing the above, I exited the bathroom to find that she's stepped in Blondage's dog's shit and tracked it all over my house.

posted by john at 08:21 AM  •  permalink

June 03, 2008

you realize, of course, that this means war.

As a role model, my dad was decidedly lacking. My friend Lisa once observed that I use him as a negative role model, that I've defined my adult self—or at least my ideal adult self—by consciously not being him. I do not have a substance abuse problem. I am not violent. I do not hit children or women. I do not lob the n-word and c-words and their ilk at strangers whose mere existence annoys me. I have a temper, a fine one actually, but it's not out of control.

This is by choice. I don't know that I am actually any mellower than my dad; I just refuse to indulge his temper. When provoked, I can feel a volcanic amount of rage that I do not allow an outlet. I contain the rage for two half-lives. My stomach-lining is made of strong stuff. Not surprisingly, such provocations usually come from family, each of whom was blessed with my dad's rage. Like nitro sitting next to C-4, I used to explode sympathetically. Then I learned to just walk away. Hell, I moved away.

I credit Bugs Bunny cartoons with this change in "stragety." My only male role model growing up, Bugs didn't look for fights like my family did. He tried to avoid fights. But he wasn't a victim, either. He just sits in his palatial rabbit hole watchin' TV and munchin' on a truly staggering pile of carrots, and he gets angry only when some asshat with a gun or rocket or ACME folding door picks a fight. This ethic appealed to me enormously as a kid. Bugs' maxim seemed to be "live peaceably, bother no one, and if they bother you, retaliate decisively." Man, did that make sense to me. Man, does it still make sense to me now.

But to accomplish this, I had to chain up my Inner Dad. This took years of work. Inner Dad used to get a hand free and take the wheel once in a while, but he does no longer. He's manacled and gagged in the darkest recesses of my soul.

But every once in a while, when all reasonable measures fail, Outer Bugs will sigh resignedly, slump, and stare at that manacle key.

posted by john at 07:42 AM  •  permalink

May 27, 2008

fratricide: cheap shots i have thrown, part v

I received a last-minute phone call that a pickup soccer game needed players. And so I drove the haul to Chillicothe, OH, and I inserted myself at right fullback. We were a full half-hour into the game before the ball came into my hemisphere. The other team's left wing looked familiar. Really familiar. Wow, what a coincidence.

If you ever meet my brother, Russ, you will come away with the impression that when I was, say, 8 and he was 17, I beat the crap out of him and not vice-versa. The fact is that there were exactly five times I ever got the best of him. This is the story of the last.

He was surprised, too. And then we realized the significance of the moment: this was the first time we would ever compete against each other as adults. This man was once the boy who drove tomato stakes into the back yard so that I could practice ball-handling by weaving through them. Now, he was weaving through me.

He beat me badly the first time. Completely pantsed me and got an easy goal. And then I got a couple of stops. But in the scintillating scoring system that is soccer's, one goal is an enormous lead, and as such Russ could claim to be leading our personal contest. Another goal and he would achieve immortal bragging rights.

To aid his quest for immortality, his team started funneling him the ball on every advance. Eventually, inevitably, he got behind me again. I slipped. He drove toward the goal. The goalie slipped. Russ drove to point-blank range and stopped. He was going to make the net really billow. This was for immortality! And so my showboating brother selected his shot, cocked back his leg, and...

He doesn't remember what happened next, but I do. I hit him so hard from behind that I knocked him a few yards out of bounds. His skinny body made a wet celery sound. The ball remained where he'd left it. I was yellow-carded, of course, and he was awarded a penalty shot. He staggered to the ball and weakly kicked a roller. The goalie had no problem stopping it. Russ took himself out of the game and remained out for the next, oh, 15 years.

He blames me for the end of his glorious career. And for his subsequent battles with back pain. I may or may not be responsible, but what I will not concede is that I had somehow made an improper play.

"YOU TOOK ME OFF THE BALL, JOHN!" he'll snarl angrily.

"I'm sorry, did you score?"

I'd show more of the conversation, but those are essentially the only two sentences we've spoken for the last 15 years.

posted by john at 07:39 AM  •  permalink

May 20, 2008

patricide: cheap shots i have thrown, part ii

I was about 19. I was playing in a pickup basketball game in my father's neighborhood when, for the first time in my life, he decided to attend one of my games. Sigh. It would have to be in basketball.

Still, I appreciated his encouragement. "Move your ass, John! Jesus Christ, it's like you're running through sand! Stop passing, you pussy! Shoot! Shoot! Ha ha ha. What a brick."

After 20 minutes of such scintillating wit, we lost several players. I pointed to my 50 year old father, standing on the baseline. "Him." Everyone agreed.

Because everyone but Dad knew what was coming. (Perhaps if you had come to one of my games, Dad, you too would have known better than to whip off your shirt and trot on to the court without a care in the world.) He insisted on guarding me, naturally, and it wasn't long before I was going up for a rebound and felt him trying to go up my back.

"MY EYE!" he screamed, cupping his face like his eye might fall out of its socket. "MY FUCKING EYE!"

In his haste to leave, he left his mangled eyeglasses lying on the court. My elbow felt better the next day. His glasses and cracked eye socket, not so much.

Dad never went to one of my games again.

posted by john at 08:49 AM  •  permalink

February 04, 2008

playing it forward

My boss, Annette, knocked once and entered my office. She found me slumped on my desk, staring into space forlornly. Even more than usual. I was listening to a recording of an angry man's voice. You're an irredeemable piece of shit, he said, or words to that effect. Everybody hates you. Except me. I don't hate you because I never even think about you, anymore, and I'm happy now. You're dead to me and I have no feelings at all about you. Moreover, Dad was right: you're probably on drugs. And mentally ill. You're an unemployable loser and—

Now Annette, too, looked forlorn. "What exactly am I listening to?"

"Oh. You're listening to my speakerphone, which is playing my voice-mail, which contains a message from my sister, who held her phone up to her answering machine and then played a message our brother left for her. Which is what you're hearing. She decided to share."

"And this seems normal to you?"

"Normal depends on your frame of reference."

Annette has since invited me to holidays with her family. They're amazing people. They adore one another. They actually root for, not against, one another's success.

The wonder.

posted by john at 06:36 AM  •  permalink

November 20, 2007

grieving a beautiful lie

Mr. Keats tells us that beauty and truth are one and the same. I respectfully disagree. I've never seen anything flowerier and more colorful than the bullshit people peddle themselves.

One of the mental muscles I seem to lack is the capacity for grieving over something that never existed. This condition is apparently not genetic. My family is a huge proponent, particularly with regard to canonizing our parents (or for that matter, reburying them together). Later in life, Dad became gentle, kind, generous, they tell me. He didn't swear, and he was great with the grandkids. Okay, fine. I smell bullshit, but whatever makes them happy is fine. Yet if I try to talk about Dad's transgressions—say, his attempts to strangle me—I'm immediately cut off. "Stop emphasizing the negative, John." Oh yes. When he "changed" late in life, that somehow changed the continuum of his whole life. I get it now. Sorry to have spoken the truth in my siblings' presence.

But at least in their case, the lie is meant to make them feel better. A buddy of mine married an astoundingly selfish, childish woman. At his wedding, we guests placed over/under bets on the divorce. Not at the reception—in the church. He admitted to not loving her, but to him she represented his only shot at normality and stability, so he took it. And for years his friends watched him die in the relationship until, inevitably, he found comforts elsewhere. When, many affairs and many years too late, he filed for divorce, he sat in my office and blubbered over his lost love. I did not recognize the wife over whom he grieved; she truly existed only in his recent imagination. I was speechless. Life has so much actual awfulness. Why imagine up fiction about which to feel awful? Dump her and get on with the good part of your life, already.

I have not been impervious to grieving lies, myself. A while back I cracked open the Fucking Amy box and, for the first time since we broke up, I looked at her pictures and read her letters. I was surprised by what I found. This was not the woman, the beautiful lie, I'd remembered and for which I'd grieved. What a dull, unremarkable child she was. How on earth had I ever concluded that life could not go on without this pointless person? I felt embarrassed. I wondered if my friends had felt that way but had been too polite to say anything. And what did this beautiful lie gain me? A couple years of dysfunction based on my own bullshit imaginings, followed by a massive embarrassment chaser. More, please.

The ugly truth: trust it, embrace it, wallow in it. It'll set you free.

posted by john at 07:30 AM  •  permalink

November 13, 2007

stepmother postscript

Katrina says that the cemetery plot on Queen of Martyrs Lane would well serve my corpse. Although I plead No Contest to the martyr label, I'll counter that there's more poetry in my trannie dad being buried there.

posted by john at 07:21 AM  •  permalink

November 12, 2007

the stepmother of all battles

I hate my stepmother as much as anyone does. As much as anyone could. In fact, I was first to hate her. For a decade, my siblings argued that she was not, in fact, Satan incarnate. I disagreed. I'm not sure what brought the rest of them around, but if I had to bet, I'd guess it was when she wanted to show the entire family a videotape of my father's drunken, cross-dressing antics, the family declined, and a week later she put on "Cinderella" for my young nieces only to discover, far too late for my nieces' emotional well being, that the video was in fact the dad footage.

Whatever the reason, my siblings all hate her now. Just how much they hate her is evidenced in their latest scheme. They're enormously pleased with their cleverness. They tell me about the scheme every time we speak. After my stepmother dies and is planted next to my dad as planned, my siblings are going to dig my dad up and rebury him next to our mother. Never mind that none of these three people would have chosen this arrangement. Never mind that my siblings will be gleefully spiting someone who'll be, well, too dead to know. Or care. Never mind that Dad beat Mom and that she loathed him. There's history to be revised, dammit, and money to be wasted on impotent spite.

Yep. These are my relatives.

"You have to post about this," says Allie. "No one would believe how petty your stupid family really is." The executor of my estate then grows contemplative. "Hmmm. Does this mean the spot next to your stepmother will be open?"

posted by john at 05:48 AM  •  permalink

November 08, 2007

time capsule

I ended up with a great deal of time on my hands last Sunday, and I decided to visit my mother's grave for the first time since we buried her. I don't think much of cemeteries, myself. They're landfills. That's not my mother any more than a crumpled up beer can is. Visiting once every two decades is just fine.

I snaked through the Catholic cemetery, peering at the street names, trying to remember on which street I planted Mom. The names are all Catholic, of course. There's St. Luke the Wise street. Theresa the Merciful street. And then I hit upon it, and with a rush I remembered my teenage-self chuckling when he pointed to a map and asked if there were any plots available on that street.

posted by john at 07:04 AM  •  permalink

October 17, 2007

jeremiah

My eleventh summer, as part of her doomed effort to keep me from getting a dog, Mom allowed me to get a kitten. Mom and I clashed instantly on what to name the little orange-beige thing. She favored "Peanut Butter," and I favored anything else.

"We could get his sister and name her 'Jelly!'" Mom squealed, delighted by her skilled wordplay. Then she cupped her hands over her mouth and pretend-called the names out the front door. "Peanut Butter! Jelly! C'mon!"

Using mere logic, I was unable to derail my mother's attempt to ensure that I never, ever got laid in my imminent teen years. Desperate, I veered spiritual.

"I can flip to any random book of the Bible and find a better name than 'Peanut Butter.' Why don't we let God decide?" Mom agreed. I flipped through the Bible and stuck my finger in at random.

Psalms. "Best, two out of three," I said.

Deuterotomy.

Lamintations.

Canticle of Canticles.

Jeremiah.

Jeremiah would never be neutered. This was elective surgery that my mother considered a luxury on the order of a boob job. This decision led to much misery for all concerned, none more so than our longtime vet, a frequent target of Jeremiah's unmitigated testosterone levels. After treating Jeremiah, the vet would manfully dab antiseptic on his face while he lectured Mom about neutering the cat. And then he would attend to Mom's and my wounds, too.

After one particularly violent visit, he grabbed my arm as we left the building. "It doesn't have to be surgical," the vet pled. "Just slide a rubber band down his tail, loop it around his balls, and wait for them to turn black and snap off."

As bad as the destination was, the journey was even worse. Jeremiah insanely hated riding in the car. No cardboard kitty carrier afforded any amount of protection. He's go through that like, well, claws through cardboard. Mom would be driving, and we'd hear the low, psychotic rowl emanating from the box, followed by the terrifying sound of a sledgehammer systematically testing flimsy cardboard joints for weaknesses. And then one of the rowls would non longer sound muffled, and we'd look in the back seat to find a bug-eyed cat bursting out of the corner of the box. And my mother would yell "GO GET HIM!"

Lamentably, it was my job to corral him and keep him restrained during the remaining six to seven days it took to get to the vet. I would lunge into the back seat, and it it was like my world was a blender and someone had hit puree. Those trips were a whirling blur of cat claws. I remember images of Mom screaming while driving, cat biting boy, boy pinning down cat, cat death-gripping Mom's head, Mom biting cat, cat driving while screaming. Fortunately, the vet always had antiseptic waiting.

Jeremiah and I both outlived Mom. She'd always said we'd be the death of her, and while I have no evidence of causality, I certainly can't disprove it. Alone at 17, I couldn't afford a place that would allow a cat, so I found Jeremiah a good home. Or rather, Celeste, my first girlfriend, did. I came home one day to find Celeste there but Jeremiah gone. I was upset.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I know you would have wanted to say goodbye, but time was..."

"ARE YOU OKAY?!" I inspected her face and arms for lacerations. "Did you use the carrier and the manacles?!"

"Huh? No. I just put him on the passenger seat next to me, and he curled up and slept the whole way."

posted by john at 07:40 AM  •  permalink

October 10, 2007

badvice

Perhaps the worst advice I ever got was, not surprisingly, from my father. Upon hearing my career choice of technical writing, he sniffed confidently that there was no such profession and that I would end up starving to death. He based this assertion on the fact that in his minuscule subset of the world, there were no technical writers. What with him knowing everything, this observation must hold true everywhere. Today, everything and everyone in my life flows from my having ignored this advice.

Similarly moronic advice came from my older brother. When during college I bought a computer for word processing, he told anyone who would listen that I was sinfully wasting money. You'd think I was snorting coke off hookers' chests. "Use a pencil," he snarled, thrusting a pencil in my face. Presumably he meant for writing, not for the hookers.

The familial mental handicap didn't stop there. My mother would yell at me any time my genitals came with six feet of the color TV. The radiation would sterilize me, she said. Today, although I am quite nearsighted, I am not sterile. So I wear glasses while I contemplate a vasectomy.

My Polish immigrant grandmother takes the prize, though, for sheer jaw-droppingnessity. Visiting our local pool, she yelled at me to get out of the water. Since I don't speak Polish, it took me a while to understand all the fussing, but with my dad's help I came to realize that she was concerned about my swimming with black children. Why? (Wait for it... wait for it...) Because the black would come off their skin and get on my own.

I defy you to beat that for sheer idiocy. What's the worst advice a family member ever gave you?

posted by john at 07:26 AM  •  permalink

July 29, 2007

update

On this, what would have been my father's birthday, I'm pleased to report that the alcoholic, wife/child-beating, cross-dressing, molester inventor of the anti-aircraft sparrow remains quite dead.

A birthday message for Dad:

It's not the humidity there, you know. It's the heat.

posted by john at 08:15 PM  •  permalink

July 16, 2007

the last word

I blundered upon the technique when I was 21. I had just told my sister Nadine that she was miserable and unkind and that I didn't want anything to do with her anymore. She countered by leaving an unremitting stream of poisonous invective on my answering machine. At least the first message was. I didn't listen to the other 20 or so. Confounded by my answering machine's two-minute limitation, Nadine called and called and called again. When the calls stopped, I walked over to the machine and pressed Delete All. I was past the point where I cared what she said about me. If it meant I'd heard the last of her, would gladly let her have the last word.

I wouldn't hear from her for eight years.

Score! I would come to call this my "last word policy." The basic human need to have the last word dovetails perfectly with the John need to avoid basic humans. Giving assholes the last word costs me nothing, especially if I don't actually read/hear it, and it invariably provides peace. The other party becomes preoccupied with denying me the last word, and they leave me alone, lest they lose their status. It's bliss.

posted by john at 05:44 AM  •  permalink

June 04, 2007

uncle jim

When I was a kid, Uncle Jim represented hope. He was, after all, my only male relative in anyone's memory to have retained his hair. And a lush shock of black Polish hair it was. I clung to Uncle Jim, hoping that I too got a winning ticket in whatever genetic lottery he'd won.

Alas. Perhaps he was adopted.

He represented hope in another, crucial way. Uncle Jim was my only relative who was consistently kind. Even though I was a mere bud in a sprawling Polish-Catholic family tree, he always sought me out, genially chatted me up, connected with me, made sure I felt included. If you want to be beloved forever, do that with the youngest of 20-some-odd cousins. It was impossible to believe that this gentle, decent man was composed of essentially the same genetic material as my father.

Uncle Jim was married to my Aunt Jo, a shrewish, jealous woman about whom I have no fond memories whatsoever. No one liked her except him. Her funeral was a vaguely happy occasion for most of us. Not Uncle Jim, of course. He was devastated. But he would get over that, and life would be better for all.

It's been decades. He still hasn't gotten over it. Their home is a shrine to her. As often as not, conversations of any genre seem to lead back to her. A mere mention of Aunt Jo elicits bona fide blubbering. He visits her grave every day to tell her the goings on. He never considered getting remarried; there was no time in his busy grieving schedule during which he might meet women.

The grieving period of his long life has lasted three-fourths of my own. When I was a kid, I thought he was just a sentimental wuss. "Jesus Christ. Get over it already," I thought. "Live your life." And truthfully, a part of me will always feel that way. As I've plowed through adulthood myself, though, leaving a trail of alternately inconsequential and serious relationships in my wake, I've viewed Uncle Jim's grief through a slightly different lens. Simply put, no one's ever loved me that much, nor I them. I don't envy him, exactly, but I do increasingly admire his depth of feeling. I don't particularly want to hurt like that, but I really wouldn't mind loving like that. It's a comfort to know that someone can—especially someone composed of essentially the same genetic material as me.

Hopefully he wasn't adopted.

posted by john at 06:12 AM  •  permalink

May 23, 2007

foreshadowing

You tend to think of "death bed" as absolutely singular, like "virginity" or "Oprah." In a manner befitting such a drama queen, however, my mom occupied at least a dozen death beds. During one particularly grave episode, she summoned my siblings one by one. When she was done making Linda, who had estranged herself, weep, Mom sent for Celeste, my first girlfriend.

"My mom wants to say goodbye, I guess," I told her. "Or maybe it's a maudlin please-take-care-of-my-boy thing."

She dutifully marched in, returning 20 minutes later, tears streaming down her cheeks. And then she burst out laughing.

"John's a bum," Mom had thoughtfully cautioned her. "He'll never hold a job. Don't saddle yourself with him. Get out."

It's dawning on me only now that I have no ending for this post. Except that Celeste eventually took her advice.

posted by john at 06:44 AM  •  permalink

April 02, 2007

rethinking mom

I've been wanting to write a play about my mom (I, II, III) for years, now, but I'm having no luck getting my head around her character. You'd think that'd be easy enough, but you try writing about a selfish, bitter, insanely jealous hero. Not many characters in literature or film fit that description, and for good reason.

The "hero" notion is something that I've only become aware of in recent years. When divorces spread through her circle in the 70s, Mom dumped my dad (I, II). He deserved to go, but in casting off the breadwinner she consigned herself, and her remaining child, to a life of poverty. Mom had a college degree [sic] in Home Economics. She'd never held a job. She would only hold two in her life: working the deli at the neighboring Kroger and wiping butts as a nursing assistant.

I told other kids she was a nurse. I was ashamed of her.

I was a latchkey kid. Money was scarce. We didn't go on vacations or trips to amusement parks like my friends. A couple Christmases went by without presents. In perhaps my personal lowest point socially, I had four shirts in the sixth grade. I carefully rotated which shirt would be worn twice, hoping that no one would notice. They did. You know how kind kids can be.

In modern parlance, I was an "at-risk" kid. I had no conception of it at the time, and all credit goes to Mom. She worked hard. (She bitched about work constantly, costing her "superhero" status, but frankly so do I.) But despite the fiscal realities, I never worried about going hungry or not having a roof over my head, and I accepted as a foregone conclusion that I would go off to college and live happily ever after.

Now, I was not uninformed. Living alone for long stretches when she was hospitalized with cancer, I had better access to the checkbook than most kids. I knew the realities, yet I worried not once about my home's stability or my lack of future. For creating such a comfort level, my mother is a bona fide hero, for surely she worried about it constantly. That this at-risk kid didn't become a realized-risk kid is entirely due to the wholly unwarranted confidence she engendered.

But how to marry that accomplishment with the woman who viciously maligned her children at every turn? Who wailed enviously, and unremittingly, about what others had? When I figure it out, I'll let you know.

posted by john at 12:44 PM  •  permalink

March 01, 2007

the stupidest kid on the face of the earth

Before I turned 10, back when my family still bore a resemblance to a real one, we all lived under one roof. Although we lived 20 feet from our neighbors on either side, we claimed to live in the country, as there were woods and cow pastures just across the street. This is where I learned to detest cows, but that's another anecdote.

I don't know that my brother and I were any more accident-prone than other boys, but our location in the country kept things interesting. Remember when you were ducking under the electric wire and it snagged inside your lips, applying its jolt to your gums, and you woke up looking at your concerned friends, one of whom was nudging your face with his foot just in case you were still electrified? Remember that? No?

Russ emphasized the blood-spurting spectacular, but I preferred head trauma. Things like jumping off the playhouse deck just to see if it were possible. Things like tripping while sprinting into the house, cracking my forehead on the cement threshold. Things like watching Evil Knievel on tv, then building a rickety ramp out of mason blocks and 2x4s—none of which was actually attached to one another, mind you—and then assaulting this debris pile at 30 mph in a bike that weighed 80 pounds. And things like hanging curtains by stepping on the back of the easy chair, causing it to violently rock into the picture window and catapult me through the glass and into the back yard.

Lying there amongst the shards of broken glass, I knew what was coming next. My mother's unconditional love always manifested through the same sentence.

"Jesus H. Christ. You are the stupidest kid on the face of the earth."

"I'm fine, thanks." I was troubled by what she had just said, though, and by what she had said previously. "So how can Russ and I both be the stupidest? You pretty much have to pick one, don't you?"

"No. You alternate. It's a competition."

It was, actually. We kept track of our stitch-counts. Russ, a decade older, led by triple-digits, but I was gaining and gaining fast. At least until a suspicious band-saw mishap put his mark forever out of reach.

How competitive was it? One time, my mom and I were driving home from the emergency room and she was verbally lopping points off my intelligence while I carefully counted stitches for Guinness. Suddenly, we passed my father and brother on their way to the emergency room. Russ gave me the finger, which was more or less still attached to his hand. Mostly less.

All hail the master. It was like when Karl Malone would approach the scoring title and Jordan would torch someone for 65, just to put the title out of reach. You simply don't outscore Jordan, and you don't outbleed Russ. I might have been the stupidest kid on the face of the earth in spurts, but he held the belt. He was Ali to my Leon Spinks.

Wouldn't life be grand if such seasoning in childhood made for tough adults? If Russ and I hadn't grown up into self-pitying pussies who whine unabashedly every time we get a hangnail or the flu? Alas, we're left with nothing but wistful stories of yesteryear's toughness.

Like this one time...

posted by john at 08:13 AM  •  permalink

January 30, 2007

mr. good hand, mr. bad hand

All told, I was lucky. I could have been doubled up with one of my slob teenage sisters, but instead I slept in the bottom bunk under my brother, Russ. At 14, he was nine years older than me and the acknowledged master of all things worth knowing. All these decades later, in fact, he still claims to hold this title.

(An aside to prospective parents: a nine year gap between brothers is insanely cruel to the younger party. By the time I was big enough to fight back, he was a practicing dentist.)

I don't remember much about those years. I remember crying one time because my nose was stuffed and I couldn't breathe, and I remember Russ yelling at me to stop. I explained. He replied that it was, in fact, possible for me to breathe through my effing mouth. A life-changing revelation.

Mostly, I remember the occasional visits from Mr. Good Hand and Mr. Bad Hand.

Sometimes, a hand would appear. Hanging from the bunk above, it would watch me. Sometimes it beckoned me. If it was the entity I came to think of as Mr. Good Hand, he would perform intricate hand-shakes with me, give me five, thumb-wrestle, even give me candy. But if it was Mr. Bad Hand, run for cover. Mr. Bad Hand would give me searing Indian burns, peel my thumb back until I screamed, crack all of my knuckles at once, fling me out of bed, or worst of all, yank me airborne and wedge my tiny body in the two-inch gap between the top bunk and the wall. Sometimes I even had to wake up my brother and have him unwedge me.

The genius of Mr. Good Hand, Mr. Bad Hand was that they were utterly indistinguishable. I tried to recognize them, but there was no apparent pattern to which side of the bed they would appear on. Even the placement of the thumb seemed to change. Most insidious of all, Mr. Bad Hand sometimes pretended to be his kindly twin, only to later announce himself in a horrible and painful reveal. Beware bad hands bearing candy.

Why touch the hand at all, you ask? Why didn't I learn that my participation was central to my own torment? Because I had to know. I simply had to know which hand was watching over me. No amount of bunk wedges could dissuade this lethal curiosity.

It was good practice, as it turns out, for dating.

posted by john at 06:44 AM  •  permalink

December 07, 2006

three to two

I know exactly when I first thought of having a living will. It was Christmas Eve, and my siblings and I were voting on whether or not to let my mother die. At this point, Mom had terminal ovarian, lung, lymph and brain cancer; had several crushed vertebrae that resulted in paralysis, not to mention bed pneumonia and acute claustrophobia; had just had her second heart attack; and showed no brainwaves from the depths of her Christmas coma.

Should we put her on extreme life-support? The decision was a slam-dunk.

The vote went 3-2.

In a situation that could only be more hopeless and more obvious if Mom were also decapitated, two siblings actually voted to keep my mother's lungs pumping at any cost. Theirs was an emotional, not moral decision. They wanted their mother alive, no matter the suffering it caused.

3-2. For me, the moment would forever epitomize selfish cruelty and moral weakness.

And it was the moment I decided to take the decision out of my family's hands. They cannot be trusted to put my interests above their own. I therefore entrusted my plug to friends and girlfriends, finally settling on the one the person in the world most inclined to pull it: my ex-girlfriend.

"Can I pull it now?" she asks. "How about now?"

She has to spread my ashes over Heinz Field, too. My will even provides for her fines.

• • •

Allie's drowning with work this week, so naturally I call her every half-hour or so with updates about what the FoxNews ticker says ("THE WAR ON CHRISTMAS: Is it hurting our children?") and about my health. The day she gets Caller-ID at work, it's all over.

"My left eye is twitching," I'll say.

"Mmm hmm."

"It's making me nuts."

"I bet."

"What do you think it is?"

"Yeah."

"I think it's a heart attack."

"It's not a heart attack."

"It's a prelude to a heart attack, then. I'm gonna keel over on Football Weekend next week, just like I always wanted. It'd force Bubba to carry my corpse from stadium to stadium, plopping it in the seat next to him."

"Hey!" she said, perking up. "If you go to Pittsburgh, that would save me from having to dispose of you!"

Damn, that's cold. "I'll just tell Bubba to toss me in the trash on his way out of the stadium."

"Why trouble him? He can just leave you under his seat, with the beer cups and gnawed chicken bones."

This fate appeals to me way, way more than it should. Way.

posted by john at 01:33 PM  •  permalink

October 20, 2006

i thought i remembered this car in all its glory. i was wrong.

My sister sent me this blast from our past the other day. This is her college car, which almost killed me on more occasions than your web browser can render. Besides, any stories I tell you won't be nearly as terrifying as what your imagination conjurs.

Yes, it was ancient then, too.

posted by john at 08:42 AM  •  permalink

October 12, 2006

the old last-time-i-saw-my-dad story

Family Week concludes, as threatened, with the original last-time-I-saw-my-Dad story.

• • •

Like many little kids, I couldn't wait to grow up and leave the family. Like few, I actually did.

When my brother sent a message into the fog, our dad had no idea where I was or how to find me. I hadn't seen him in four years. I fully intended to make it a lifetime.

"Dad's trying to drink himself to death," my brother told me.

"How's that new?"

"He really is trying to kill himself. He hasn't eaten in two weeks, and he's drinking nonstop. His bloodstream is pure alcohol. He's trying to commit suicide."

I didn't say what I was thinking: Maybe that's for the best. "Well, take away his booze."

My brother continued. "He's requested to see you one last time before he dies."

"Oh hell no. I have no interest in saying goodbye to a drunken martyr."

We talked some more, my brother trying to talk me into fulfilling the request, for the family's sake. He thought it might make a difference.

"If I go, I'm calling the sheriff and having Dad thrown in the drunk tank," I announced.

My brother didn't object. I was the perfect candidate to do so, after all. It's not like I was going to be cut any more out of Dad's will. And thus did I drive to tiny London, Ohio, against my better judgement. As I approached my father's house, every corpuscle in my body tugged me away. But once you've committed to such an enterprise, I reasoned, you're going straight to hell if you back out. I searched the neighborhood for the address my brother had given me, for a house I had never seen. When I came upon a house with a gigantic statue of the Virgin Mary in the front yard, I slammed on the brakes. It could be no one else's home.

The back door was unlocked, and the house wasn't as decimated as I would have thought. My brother had reported that my dad had spent all of yesterday trying to call him, so impaired was his mind and dexterity; I had expected a war zone. There were a few magazines and newspapers scattered about, but it was otherwise neat. I did some quick reconnaissance. I found it downright creepy to break into this strange, silent house and see long-forgotten artifacts from my childhood—lamps, paintings and such. I paused to look at pictures of the family hanging on the staircase wall. And then in the kitchen, I found a rifle lying on the kitchen counter. Next to it was an illegible note. It looked like toddler scribbling. If my dog, Ed, attempted to write a note while blindfolded and clenching the pen in her butt cheeks, it would be no less legible.

I could put it off no longer; it was time for the main event. I found my way to the bedroom, where Dad waited for me. Unconscious, buck naked, one leg off the bed, one leg on, and ol' brownie winking at the world. I winced and covered him up. The man reeked of alcohol and vomit and alcoholic vomit. I tried to wake him. It couldn't be done. It took me an hour to get him to sit upright and focus his eyes on me. When he did, he thought I was my brother and mumbled something about his rich son taking yet another day off. I informed him that I was not, in fact, my brother.

"Do you know who I am, Dad?"

He squinted. "John...?"

"Yeah, Dad. It's me."

With surprising speed, he lunged at my throat, wrapping both hands around my neck and trying to crush my windpipe with his thumbs. I smacked him off. He apologized. Then he lunged at my throat again.

We played choke-me-punch-you until he got tired, and we sat on the edge of his bed until his breath returned and we could resume. It was then that I noticed his toenail polish. It was sloppily applied—apparently Ed had been clenching the brush in her butt cheeks—but it was definitely toenail polish. And fingernail polish. And rouge. And was that mascara? What had my stepmother done to him? And then my dad uttered the words that would rock my moronic family. Here they are in unfiltered drunkenese:

"Tho....tho...tho....I I I I I I g-guess b-by n-now you you you've phiggered out dat...dat...dat myour old man's a...a...a...tr-tr-tr-transvebspite."

Actually, I hadn't. Thanks for the anecdote, though. I promise to use it only for good.

I explained to him the deal: I was throwing out all the booze, and he was eating, or I was calling the sheriff. I got up to go to the kitchen. He did something approximating my movement, but not really, tumbling like an armload of empty liquor bottles to the ground. I helped him up. Leaning on me heavily, he nevertheless lunged for my throat. Ker-PLUNK-PLUNK.

I got him to the kitchen table and began to cook whatever I could find. He told me how I'd wronged him by disappearing. He accused me of being on drugs.

"I hope you fully appreciate the irony of that statement someday," I snapped.

Oblivious, he plowed on. He told me what a stupid fuck-up I was. Why, I couldn't even get through college.

"Actually, if you'd bothered to check, you'd see that I did."

"LIAR!"

"I graduated."

"Bullshit! Liar!"

I had actually anticipated this particular line of abuse, as it's where he'd left off four years earlier. I pulled my Ohio State diploma, still in its bright scarlet binder, out of my backpack. I flipped it to my dad. "There ya go, Sherlock."

He held the diploma, tried to focus on it, and promptly drooled on it. A big, globular ball o' toxic slobber plunked its surface. And then he dropped the binder, and it slammed shut. To this day, my undergraduate diploma has a huge orange smear. If anyone, God forbid, needs my dad's DNA sample, look no further.

He had me read the diploma to him—a hilarious request, in retrospect—lunged at my throat twice more, and fell down countless times. I don't think he ever ate. Finally, my sister Linda called. I gave her the report, and she said she was coming later and thereby got me off the hook. Except for anecdotal fodder, my descent into revulsion had been a complete waste of time, a wholly unnecessary compromise of my principles. Lesson learned. I was still on the phone when Dad appeared in the doorway.

"Hold on a second, Linda. Dad pulled a gun on me." I set the phone down.

"John? JOOOOOOHHHHN!" said the tinny voice on the other end.

There dad was, cackling with glee and trying to aim the loaded rifle at me. Fortunately, the man who could scarcely stand could point a rifle even less, and I was able to disarm him before anything could happen. But the deed was done. My dad had pulled a gun on me.

I took that opportunity to leave. "Why??" he said angrily. All I wanted was to get out the door and back to the comforts of the fog that hid and protected me from my family. Desperate to extricate myself, I made whatever promises to see him again that it took. He accused me of lying. For once, he was right.

• • •

I drove back to Columbus, where I picked up Maddie at her workplace and took her out to dinner. We sat in a booth, facing one another. I thought she was wincing because of my story, but she informed me that my breath reeked of alcohol. That's how drunk (and near) my father had been. The alcohol in his exhalations had so saturated my lungs that even an hour later, my own breath reeked of his.

• • •

There are many epilogues to this story, but one of my favorites is the most recently discovered. A year after the encounter, when he was relatively sober, my dad's account included some editorial commentary.

"I forgot to check whether the diploma was real," he snorted. That he was unable to hold or read it without help? Not mentioned. The drool? Didn't make the cut. The swipe at my character? There as always. Truly, I must be on drugs not to want to be around people as kind and decent as them.

posted by john at 08:52 AM  •  permalink

October 11, 2006

the new last-time-I-saw-my-dad story

Dirt and I were driving past fields in Iowa somewhere, talking about love and life. At one point he asked, "So when's the last time you saw your dad?"

I described for him the scene. It was 1997, and my sister was visiting me, and Dad decided to tag along. Before we'd left the airport, he was questioning everything. Where I parked was stupid. My car was stupid. Seattle was stupid. Microsoft was no Boeing. I clearly remember spiraling down the parking ramp at Seatac and thinking "Jesus Christ, that's five insults, and we're not even out of the freakin' parking garage."

The weekend was progressively more hostile. His visit was an angry inspection. The more he saw evidence that I had, in fact, succeeded without him and that I was not, in fact, on/dealing drugs as he'd been telling people for a decade, the angrier he became. He questioned whether my job really existed. He corrected the way I filled my gas tank. Because my rental house was more house than one person needed, he accused me of hiding a roommate and demanded to know where she was. He eviscerated a poor teenager working at Subway for daring to ask what ingredients Dad wanted on his sub. Mortified, I gave the kid five bucks as we left. "The kid is a dumbass," I was told, "And you're a dumbass for tipping him." And on and on. And finally, when I was putting the top up on my Jeep and politely declined his help, saying that it would be quicker for me to just do it, he erupted in profanity. I believe "motherfucking dumbass" was what he so eloquently called me in my own home.

The rest is a blur, but I remember a lot of adrenaline and shouting. I chased him up the stairs, shoving him in the chest and very badly wanting him to give me an excuse to throw him off the balcony. Dad declined to take a swing at me. "I guess you only hit women and little kids, huh?" I seethed, fists clenched. "You pussy."

I explained in very certain terms that he would never again be in my home. I hugged my shell-shocked sister and whispered to her that she was always welcome. When I last saw my dad, he was shuffling off to his plane. By the time the story circulated around Ohio and filtered back to me, I was quite the villain indeed.

"But you know what?" I told Dirt. "That wasn't that part that bothered me. What irked me most is that this replaced my old last-time-I-saw-my-Dad story, which was a sordid spectacular. A much better story."

"Do tell."

Tomorrow: the old last-time-I-saw-my-Dad story. Guns! Violence! Nudity!

posted by john at 08:14 AM  •  permalink

but honestly again...

Two readers have suggested that the reason some question the accuracy of family posts is that most people would never, ever post such stories. Either out of fear of familial backlash or just plain shame, they would keep the skeletons locked tightly. This makes sense. And since I don't have to worry about familial backlash—what, are they doing to slander me more?—or identify with their insanities and inanities—see "dissociative break," below—it also makes sense that I would feel comfortable with the posts. They ain't my skeletons.

Hell, I finally found a use for these people. Print it! Print it!

posted by john at 07:12 AM  •  permalink

October 10, 2006

the miracle baby

OHIO - Every argument my mother had with the teenage me distilled down to this essence: I blamed her for my having been born, and she blamed me.

"Why the hell did you even have kids? You hate your kids!"

"Believe me, John," Mom would snarl as hurtfully as she could, "All of my children were accidents."

"They know what causes kids, you know. Nicely done."

Variations on that conversation repeated throughout my adolescence. We had it many, many times. My mother was exactly the sort of person who needed to make it clear that your very existence ruined hers, and she never missed an opportunity to remind you.

CUT TO:
INT. BEDROOM — MORNING — 22 YEARS LATER

It's 2006, and Mom has been dead for two decades. My eldest sister reports that she ran into an old friend of the family, Father Carmine, who I remember in name only. When I was very small, priests would come over to our house and conduct some sort of service in our living room, right in front of the piano. I think one of them might have been him.

All these decades later, to my sister's complete shock, he remembered her. The man must be 80 by now, yet he remembered our mother, father, and all the kids by name. He asked about each of us individually. And when it came to the last, he asked, "And how is the miracle baby, John Paul?"

"What." my sister monotones in my imagination.

And then Father Carmine told her about how my mother so desperately wanted a fifth baby, about how they prayed together that she would conceive.

Now, I'm at a loss to explain how a 34 year old mother of four who didn't practice birth control can get pregnant and have it proclaimed miraculous. And I do not care how. Behold the wonder, the splendor, the divine intervention that is me. Behold John, the Miracle Baby!

It didn't take me long to abuse my new status. "Well," I said to my sister pityingly, putting my arm around her. "We wanted children often have a different perspective..."

posted by john at 08:16 AM  •  permalink

but honestly...

OHIO - Anytime I write about my family, readers implore me to say I'm making it up. Even friends can't quite believe the things my family says about me. When they met my sister, both the AW and Minette asked her if it was really as bad as I said. They were hopeful, but the answer, unfortunately, was yes.

So to summarize: the only time people who know me have wondered aloud about my truthfulness is when I've talked about how my family smears me as, among other things, a liar. I hope you appreciate the irony as much as I do.

I've said it before, but Family Week merits a repeat: this site is not a work of fiction. I use only three kinds of fabrications:

1. The fake news article, like yesterday's, which is obvious enough.
2. The occasional shot at Dorkass. She is not, for instance, married to a man named Frank. She's a bull dyke spinster who got her kid by trading a mason jar of warm Grey Goose to a Hoboken squeegie guy.
3. Fake names. The mean sister's name is not really Nadine, yet my brother-in-law's name really is Nelson. "AW" is obviously fake, but "Minette" is real. What's the logic? There is none.

That's it. Everything else is 100% real. Sorry, but these people really do exist.

posted by john at 07:46 AM  •  permalink

October 09, 2006

high praise indeed

OHIO - I awoke this morning, groggily descended the stairs, and was immediately swamped by familial bombast. My sister is reading a book about mental illness. And now it's free diagnoses for everyone!

"BLAH BLAH intrusive BLAH BLAH lying BLAH BLAH disorder BLAH BLAH blame BLAH BLAH Nadine BLAH BLAH mood swings BLAH BLAH Linda BLAH BLAH bipolar BLAH BLAH medication BLAH BLAH schizoaffective BLAH BLAH bipolar again BLAH BLAH post traumatic stress disorder BLAH BLAH brother BLAH BLAH depression BLAH BLAH You, I believe, are normal."

Gee, thanks. That endorsement means so much to me. May I take my morning leak, now?

posted by john at 09:15 AM  •  permalink

October 07, 2006

co-opting tragedy

OHIO - My older sister Nadine is the family geneologist. She spent years hunting down the origins of the Grimes clan and bapitizing the unsuspecting as Grimeses. My brother-in-law Nelson, for instance. He's a Grimes. It says it right there, in my monthly Grimes newsletter.

As our beloved leader, Nadine writes us Grimeses often, always in response to a deluge of requests for information about her. It turns out we Grimes are insatiably curious about Nadine, who, as a lifelong stoner housewife and recent obtainer of her GED degree, illuminates the world for us all.

When people in Columbus were being shot by the freeway sniper, that was her personal tragedy, for she has, in the past, used Columbus freeways. She wrote us that she was terrified, but well. When a suspected cougar was roaming within a few miles of her house, she was inundated with concerned emails about her well-being, so she sent an update worldwide. When her son's high school football team lost, she pled for understanding during that difficult time. When the friend of a friend lost their house to a fire, it made her Christmas newsletter. Poor Nadine. So much tragedy, so young. She's an inspiration to us all.

The latest missive from Columbus is about the Amish shootings, which, stunningly enough, affect Nadine too:

Due to the many e-mails from Grimes relatives pertaining to the gun shooting in Lancaster, I felt a need to respond.

I have been asked by a few if we are connected... Although I have not heard the list of deceased names, we are genetically connected, therefore regardless they are our family.

The fact that one of my Aunts married the Immigrant Fisher in the early 1700's along with the name Ebersole also in many of our trees, along with Rhoads the midwife for the girls.
Yeah, unfortunately, I would say this is coming really close to home.

And answers the question many of you have had for me, are we related...
Yes, I believe we probably are even 200 plus years later. Cousin Nadine

Allie is a big fan of Nadine's prose. "I'm sending you the latest missive from Nadine," I'll say.

"Oh dear god no," she'll reply, straining to combat the morbid curiosity. She'll lose. "Okay, send it."

I sent it.

"My third cousin eight times removed once said hi to the Great-great-great grandmother of the neighbor of one of the victims," she replied. "It hits really close to home for me, too. People should send me flowers. And sympathy cards. With money in them."

posted by john at 07:24 AM  •  permalink

October 05, 2006

the unveiling

Last night I went out for drinks with a new friend and we showed one another our scabs. I always let the other person go first. She doesn't get along with her parents, who continue their lifelong practice of not much caring about her. The effects are obvious; she's twitchy, nervous, eager for approval. She makes curious relationship choices. She's in therapy, even though she doesn't think it's ever done her a lick of good or ever will.

"How about you?" she asked. "Do you get along with your parents?"

Here we go.

A simple "not really" will precipitate another question, which will precipitate another, and soon this will be a cross-examination. I know from past experience that in 30 minutes' time, this friendship will be forever changed. She'll fall in love with me (or more precisely, with the notion of repairing me), recoil in horror, or some contorted combination of the two. Mind you, I won't volunteer any information. It's just that for every follow-up question she will ask, the answer will be "Yes." On life's grand childhood trauma quiz, I get an A. Not a 100%, more like a 95%, but an A nonetheless.

It's 30 minutes later. Her drink is empty, her eyes are the size of manhole covers, and her arms are flailing wildly.

"How does that not affect you?!?"

"My family? It does."

"I don't see it."

"Oh, they're there. They're always there in the back seat of my mind, chattering in my ear. But I don't let them drive."

"But...but...how can you, like, just decide not to let it affect you?"

"Well, it'd be naive to think that it doesn't affect me at all. I mean Jesus, just look at my life. How many people like me do you know? But yes, at a certain point, I did decide to stop whining and take ownership of my own issues as best I could."

"Yeah, but how?"

"I just got fed up with my family's twistedness and decided that from that point forward, anything wrong with me was my own fault."

"Yeah, but how?"

"I just told you how."

"No you didn't."

And so it will go, forever, neither of us ever understanding the blocking issue for the other. I have friends who get it, and I have friends who don't. The ones who get it? At some point they'd decided to take ownership of their problems, too.

I have a new theory that parents who are off-the-charts, comic-book-villain bad are actually doing their kids a favor. It's not hard to make a dissociative break from comic book villains. They bear no resemblance to me or to real life, the child can honestly say. They have nothing to do with my reality. The child is forcefully shoved toward this realization. He's forced to man-up. Meanwhile, the kids with the merely shitty parents get no life-changing shove. No epiphany. They likely remain in their moderately negative parental dynamic forever, doomed to a desperate, grasping lifetime of "Yeah, but how?"

You heard it here first: parents, if you're going to mess up your kids, do them a favor and really pile it on. They'd thank you for it later, if they were still speaking to you.

posted by john at 07:54 AM  •  permalink

August 04, 2006

anti-aircraft sparrow

Okay, so this is too "in" an in-joke. I call my dad the "inventor of the anti-aircraft sparrow" because the zenith of his engineering career was leading the design of the B1 Bomber. Which is a plane that has been known to crash when it hits small birds.

As a taxpayer, I wince every time one goes down, but as a son? I laugh myself incontinent.

posted by john at 09:19 AM  •  permalink

July 29, 2006

annual update

Today is my father's 75th birthday, and I'm delighted to report that the wife-beating, child-beating, alcoholic, diploma-drooling, cross-dressing, bigoted inventor of the anti-aircraft sparrow remains quite dead.

Happy birthday, Dad. It's not the humidity, you know. It's the heat.

posted by john at 09:13 AM  •  permalink

April 20, 2006

the great playhouse massacre

For my tenth summer, Mom shipped me to Los Angeles to live with my father. What was billed as a get-to-know-your-dad-better growth experience was, in fact, complete subterfuge. Mom was secretly selling my childhood house that summer, and she wanted me out of the picture. Was she protecting me? Protecting herself from my certain histrionics? Protecting the house's resale value by hiding its worst feature? Yes.

She would live to regret not being forthright with me. I would have removed, for instance, the teacher-photograph-adorned dartboard from the basement wall. But in retrospect, when you erect such a thing, don't you hope that your teacher will someday discover it? To Mom the incident was just a lost sale, but to me, it was a watershed moment. This was when the vindictive Mrs. Meague was confronted by the depths of my scarring at her hands, and, perhaps, to feel the guilt she so richly deserved to feel.

Sorry, Mom, I would only feel good about that. If not for me, for the next kid forced to move his desk from the "good side" of the room to the "bad side" so many times, the desk could have come with an odometer.

• • • Years earlier, my dad had built the older kids a playhouse. It was quite sharp: a full-blown framed house on 8-foot stilts, complete with a wraparound deck and railing, slide, trap door and rope-ladder. By the time I was able to climb the rope ladder, the other kids were too old for such things, so I had the playhouse to myself. I decorated it as a 10-year old boy would, adorning its walls with hand-drawn posters of Steelers and other superheroes. Aquaman alone merited an entire shrine. The playhouse was littered with relics of my "inventor" period, which I kept for the benefit of future historians chronicling my earliest signs of greatness. The two irregular blocks of wood held together with model glue and several still-protruding nails served as the playhouse's indoor solar-powered refrigerator, for years ensuring that drinks never rose above room temperature.

As my siblings entered their late teens, they became engrossed in mysterious new hobbies that required great deals of privacy. They summarily reclaimed the playhouse. Suddenly, I found the rope ladder gone and the doors locked, and when I knocked I was emphatically told to go away. The next morning would be an archaeological dig, with me finding the occasional spent doobie or condom wrapper and holding it up to the sunlight for closer, squinting examination. Beer bottles littered the floor, and the solar refrigerator was tossed aside like so much scrap wood. My painstakingly drawn posters were utterly mangled, literally hanging by threads. I was incensed.

Fortunately, Saturday morning cartoons had shown me what to do in such a situation. Putting my old inventor hat back on, I rigged a simple revenge mechanism. Tying one end of a rope to the inside of the door and another to a hammer, I then hung the hammer on the wall opposite the door and fastened the rope's mid-point to the ceiling. When an intruder opened the door, the rope would tighten, the hammer would swing across the room, and pow! Just desserts would be served.

For good measure, I pulled the rope ladder into the playhouse and jumped to the ground, thereby ensuring that whoever entered would have to climb up the slide (a technique favored by my siblings) and use the rigged door. And for several weeks, my friends and I would stand aside when opening the playhouse door, like TV cops busting into a hostile room. WHOOSH! the hammer would shoot between us, violently thrashing when it reached the end of its arc. And then I forgot about it. And then I went to California.

• • •
"Did you see John's playhouse, Timmy?" my mom cooed at the 8 year-old child of a prospective home-buyer. "He's got it decorated really neat. You should go take a look. Oh, the rope ladder is gone? I think the kids just climb the slide. Go check it out! Have fun!"

And then, as Mom would recount many times later, we heard the scream. The Scream of Purest Terror in the History of All Mankind.

My Wile E. Coyote booby trap had grazed top of the the kid's head, cutting his scalp, and to hear Mom tell it he left behind a greater volume of blood than a dozen 8 year-olds could possibly contain. "Needless to say," the story would inevitably conclude, "We lost the sale."

I felt terrible that he had sprung my forgotten trap, and not just because he had deprived my sisters of their rightful fate. He was an innocent. Timmy, if you're out there, I'd like to apologize both for the scalp and for any subsequent decades of therapy. If it helps bring you any peace, know that I was punished severely. In one of the great beat-downs in west coast history, my dad got me first. And then with brazen disregard for the illegality of double jeopardy, my mom got me again when I returned home. I didn't even mind. Although I wasn't ordinarily a big fan of corporal punishment, in this case, I made an exception. I deserved what I got.

That realization, however, was slow in coming. When I explained to my parents that the the booby trap was actually intended for their other children and why, their anger abated a bit. Alas, I stoked the rage again by asking Mom if she had thought to reset the trap.

posted by john at 08:29 AM  •  permalink

March 14, 2006

the great priest-diddling craze

Like a lot of middle-aged women in the 70s, particularly in her circle, my mom embraced the feminist movement by getting a divorce. That my dad was ripe divorce material is indisputable, but that my mom and her three closest friends all got divorces in unison is equally indisputable.

Pilates and yoga might be great for you, but they're still fads.

While I was happy that my parents' unholy death march of a marriage was behind us all, I was unprepared for what came next. Mom wanted a replacement man, and she wanted one right now. She was a boy-crazy teenager—anxious, prone to bawling, unwilling to leave lunging range from the phone. I was too young to recognize that, of course, but I sure knew needy when I saw it.

The pattern began immediately. First up: Wayne, a local cop and a member of our church. Mom fixated on him, inviting him to dinner and touching his arm while laughing just-a-little-too-loudly at his jokes. Who was this fawning, obsequious woman? Why was she suddenly being a model parent when Wayne was over? She was a stranger to me, an actress, and I was her prop. My real mom made an appearance when she had the clerk of courts dig up Wayne's divorce records, which she then shared the highlights of with me. "Can you even believe what this bitch said he did? Poor Wayne. Poor, poor Wayne." She bought his house, which we lived in for Mom's remaining years. After the sale of the house, Wayne disappeared. If you ever wonder how a single mother handles rejection, wonder no more: her kid is her therapist. I reassured her that she was a good person, that she was attractive, that she wasn't going to die alone. I didn't remotely believe any of these things, of course, but lying extricated me from the crying jags and cost me nothing but my soul.

What followed next was a parade of losers the likes of which even my older sisters never mustered. Dick stands out. Dick was a spectacular midlife crisis suspended forever in mid-explosion. If you know "Disco Stu" on the Simpsons, you know Dick. I was "the man." Mom was "hot mama." They danced The Bump and roller-discoed and got afros. They weighted themselves down with ballast of gigantic, horrifyingly ugly turquoise jewelry. I, myself, had a cowboy hat with a giant silver and turquoise belt buckle on it. And a matching actual belt buckle. Dick disappeared for younger pastures, and although I wasn't sad in the least to see my mother stop defiling herself, there were times I preferred my ugly cowboy hat to my therapist's hat.

Those were mere warmups for the main attraction: Mom took a shine to Catholic priests. Loved them. Loved them. She'd always been a fan, but loneliness turned her into a sex-mad groupie. The first was Colby, who I scarcely remember, save that he used my mom and broke her heart. That, and that I was compelled to be an altar boy in his church. Shudder. Next up was Jim, a gem who actually left the priesthood for my mother; who nailed her quite audibly (parents: if you're going to lock the kid out of the house in order to get some, kindly don't lock just the screen door); who complimented her on her "nice tits" in front of me—in Spanish, so I guess it didn't count; who she couldn't wait to show off to my newly remarried father; with whom she made plans to marry, pull me out of school, sell the house, and move to an an RV in Arizona. In short order, I began perusing recruiting literature from circuses.

Jim clearly had to go. One day when I was accidentally rummaging through his bureau drawers for something, anything that would keep me from living in an RV in Arizona, I came across ballet tickets. Pure gold. He was not, as it turned out, taking my mother. That a man who was already so morally compromised would undertake cheating made sense enough to me, but for some reason it ambushed my mother. She was devastated. She hated him, and she hated me for exposing him. That didn't surprise me. What did surprise me: I didn't much care. Evil was smacked down, and order was restored to my universe. Two of my favorite things. But Mom, oddly, seemed to blame me for ruining her one chance at true happiness. A simple "thank you" would have sufficed.

posted by john at 01:29 PM  •  permalink

March 12, 2006

the seventeen year war: mom

I've resisted writing about my mom in this space. I resist for what seems to me a pretty good reason: I'm writing about her in another medium. It pains me, though, to pass up the rich source of anecdotes that was our relationship. Today, I yield. Today I'm reminded of Mom, as I am every spring, by the buds appearing on the trees in my yard.

It was the 70s, and Mom was an aspiring you-name-it. Disco, wine with metal screw-on caps, vitamin everything, turquoise everything, bellbottoms, divorce, cheap-sex-as-feminism, priest-diddling—if it was a fad in the 70s, she was practicing it. (Hmm? You don't remember the priest-diddling craze? You must have been blind. I remember it being all the rage.) One of Mom's incarnations—I'm not sure if it was the old hippie or the master gardener—dragged me outside every spring to show me the buds forming on the trees. Maybe that's daft; maybe it's not. But Mom didn't stop there. She had a whole dramatic circle of life speech. "From the Dawn of Time," she'd say in title caps, waving her hand theatrically with one hand while restraining a miserable, wriggling me by the shirt collar, "Nature has renewed itself e'ry spring. This renewal marks the time. It herewith marks our lives, and those of they who came before, and those of who will follow. We all come and go, but we are part of nature, and nature is eternal. Lo, gaze upon these pink buds, Johnny."

And then she made some profound point. I forget what.

We were an odd pairing, Mom and me. When your mother is an impetuous trend-hopper, you rebel by being overly serious, disapproving. I downright clucked. "You were born 40, John. I swear to God, " she scolded me more than once, before born-again Christianity briefly swept through her circle and she abruptly stopped using the expression. I never thought of being born 40 as an insult, particularly, at least not until I started hurtling through my 30s at uncontrollable speeds. Born 40. Yow. That makes me, like, Percy's age now.

Hurtful, hurtful woman.

posted by john at 06:02 PM  •  permalink

March 11, 2006

see? i told you mortality is life-affirming.

Bon voyage. Give my Dad my regards.

posted by john at 10:10 AM  •  permalink

February 14, 2006

the smartest member of my family

This morning I awoke to a wide-distribution email from my sister, who when we were kids narrowly defeated me for highest IQ in the family. Other than my favorite line being "please use no invectives or emotion," I offer no further comment. Enjoy.

To my friends,

The attached letter from Curt Weldon’s office, dated yesterday, MAY or may not be good news. My prediction: the hearings about Able Danger will uncover enough “slipshod crap” to get a few people in trouble and give others a public slap on the wrist. It will actually be supposed to satisfy the American people of some incompetence in the government. Many suspect that the government could have done more towards prevention of the attacks. There is much more deception and lies about the attacks than Americans know of. I won’t tell you why I believe the attacks occurred. But I will tell you that the European community is aware of the U.S.’s imperialist ventures in the Middle East, especially in Iraq, all in the name of fighting terror. The U.S. has conveniently located 4 military bases in Northern Iraq, all along the proposed oil pipeline passageway. Haliburton is putting in the pipeline.

It is certain that the Israeli intelligence agency told U.S. intelligence agencies and the U.S. government that they knew attacks on the trade center would occur. They told them which week they would occur. Our government PURPOSEFULLY ignored them, and they “happened.”. The Israeli’s had a center in one of the towers. It vacated it one week before the attacks. Israel could not save the American people, but they saved their own. Do some fact checking.

I have ALWAYS voted Republican, but I NEVER will again. This administration has passed several laws that completely violate our Constitution. They have an agenda that was set out in the 90s, and they are currently following it. They could not act upon it until they could got the support of the American people, which they gained after the attacks.

Don’t believe me if you don’t want to. But Do do some homework on this. And you will get little news from Fox, ABC, CBS and NBC or the Columbus Dispatch. The media delivers what their financial supporters want. The American people are not given all the news.

I have a few DVDs that point out the above – and much more. Two senators and a former LAPD narcotics agent speak in the first, and a number of retired military, (one of them pointed out the bases I spoke of), scholars, and concerned citizens of other countries who know that the American people are being misled by our media and government speak in the second, “Hijacking Catastrophe.” It is excellent and only one hour long. I recommend it.

Still don’t believe me? Here’s a VERY well known quote that leading members of our government made famous: “It is now certain that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction.” How many weapons did they find? None. Any apologies? Nope. Try disagreeing on me on this one.

I know a few of you are stout Republicans – and you are my friends. PLEASE TAKE NOTE OF THE DATE OF THE ABLE DANGER HEARINGS, AND SEE IF THEY ARE OPEN OR CLOSED WHEN YOU TRY TO WATCH THEM. This email was sent to me last night, Monday, February 13th, at 5:30 p.m. Surely, I must be one of the first to know of the hearings. Why do I have less than 48 hours to disseminate the news? Have they told about them in the newspapers or on the t.v. yet? Maybe so. In the last day or two? If it is longer, they must realize that I do not watch or read bought out news stations or newspapers, and I needed to be personally contacted.

Even if you are angry with me, because you think I am against our government (I am), please write to me and tell me what date it was when you found out that the hearings will be February 15th. It is now the 14th.

I am a VERY patriotic American. And I believe in the American people, especially all those in their 20’s. They have a hard road ahead of them to fix the huge problems that this current regime is creating for the American people. We are now hated over much of the world. What? Why? Because of what our government is doing in the Middle East and in other countries. Instead of building an arsenal in the 80s and 90s, our government should have been supporting research into alternative energy sources. Yes, I know they did. With a mere fraction of the amount of money that was given to “defense.” We wouldn’t be attacking and intimidating peoples of other lands who have what we want – oil – today, if we had done the work we needed to do in the last few decades.

Sadam was a terrible leader of Iraq. But we let him perform his atrocities as long as Iraqi interests aligned with U.S. interests. He became “evil that needed to be rooted out” when, and only when, Iraqi interests didn’t align with U.S. interests. The atrocities are well documented during our years of “friendship” with Iraq.

By the way, does anyone know what happened to Colin Powell? I liked him. I HEARD he retired. Did he refuse to be a part of the government of the U.S. based on personal convictions and morals? If you know what happened to him, I would like to know.

Recapping, watch for Able Danger hearings tomorrow, Tuesday.

Write and tell me when you heard the date of the hearings.

Write and tell me what really happened to Colin Powell.

Feel free to disagree with the facts in this letter. Tell me where you got your alternative findings, and how current legislation does not go against our constitution. Please don’t use invectives or emotion. Quote the rights that our government is not violating – of the American people, in, say, the Patriot Act, and the rights of peoples of other countries. Tell me how the Patriot Act, for example, is actually aligned with our constitution – ALL of it. No U.S. citizen has protection against what used to be illegal search and seizure, spying, and more. Officials in Congress did not have much time to review the Patriot Act before a vote was called for. Many blindly voted for it in a time of crisis and emotion. It will be interesting to see if it is re-upped now that everyone is aware of what it can actually allow to happen.

I love you guys. I hope this is helpful. Watch for the hearings!!! They will tell of wrongdoing in the government before and after 9/11 – and a coverup.

posted by john at 06:37 AM  •  permalink

January 27, 2006

audio mirror

Katrina has made her disdain for my Midwestern dialect quite clear over the years. It's #17 on her list of things wrong with me. I never knew which was the more distressing notion: that there's a Midwestern dialect—after all, are you not all just perversions of the standard, which is us?—or that I'm receiving linguistic criticism from a Jersey girl. "On the TEE-vee, youze axents droive me nuts," she'll say, barely comprehensible behind all the Hoboken. "Yoir joist AUE-foll."

I always figured she was full of it. And then I called home this week, tapping my two good sisters for dinner next week when I briefly sneak into Columbus. My god, the nasality. Every vowel sounded like the a in bat. I'm related to these mongoloids? It was especially jarring to hear them back to back. "A, that's GRATE yer camang. A lark farward ta seeang ya!"

"So. Um. This Midwestern dialect of which you speak," I later said to an unabashedly delighted Katrina. "Wat as at A sand layk ta ya, agaan?"

posted by john at 07:01 AM  •  permalink

January 22, 2006

pro-life

Funerals are never fun, but funerals of the virtuous and impossibly beloved are downright depressing. Listening to how his life touched others, I found it impossible not to take stock of myself. "Man. I gotta make some changes." I surveyed the hundreds of grievers in attendance. "I don't even know this many people. How many would show up for me? Hrm. Maybe if I pretend it's the reading of my will."

I'll tell ya one thing that ain't happening at my service: an open mic. As person after person spoke of how the deceased touched their lives, I imagined my friends similarly passing around a mic.

"Sumbitch died owing me money, just like he always said he would," Katrina says.

"He hit me," Dorkass offers.

"Me too," her little sister chimes.

"Dating him was like living near radioactive waste," Maddie says. "After a time, your blood just starts to turn bad."

Allie pats the casket fondly. "Thanks for the power of attorney."

A minister bows his head, hushes the crowd, and speaks. "Uh, the check from the estate bounced. Who's covering this?"

"John was my role model and mentor," Elizabeth says. "Fuck him."

"He creeped me out and I'm relieved he's dead," Courtney says. "I'm just here to poke the corpse with a stick."

My family checks in. "Mine! Mine! MINE!"

"Speaking of when I played for the Bengals..." Dirt will begin.

Sue staple-guns a note to the casket. "I made you a list of things to do differently in your next life."

"The casket is really ugly," Minette declares.

"He didn't know what it's like to be black," someone chides.

"He was my brother," Percy sniffs. "I will miss him every single day."

It's not worth it. I choose life.

posted by john at 09:30 AM  •  permalink

January 19, 2006

unlearned prejudice

I've been mulling over how to discuss two forms of prejudice I find particularly hurtful, and then it dawned on me that they should be presented together. Not because their perpetrators have anything in common, mind you, but because it'll irritate all the right people.

the unfiltered white racist

Many of you know him. This is the white guy who thinks it's okay to blurt racist comments in front of any other white person. He has cousins—the obnoxious homophobe, the chatty misogynist—but the first guy is the most common in my experience. Unfiltered whites span the education spectrum, which rather surprises me. One would think that education would temper racist comments, but no. Education just makes the hateful words bigger. My first example is mild. I recently had houseguests, a friend and her idiot husband. We had tennis on TV, and we were all intermittently watching Serena Williams beat someone. When she won, she leapt in the air and ran over to shake her vanquished opponent's hand. And the idiot husband turned his head away from the TV and snorted.

"Jay-zus ca-righst, she even jumps up and down like a black chick."

Forgetting the obvious question about the apparently distinctive nature of jumping black chicks, as racist comments go, this is downright tame. But it still filled my head with resentment. Oh. My. God. You tool. You're actually rooting against her because she's black. Jesus Christ, indeed. Out of the world of possible choices, my friend married you? What makes you think it's okay to say that in front of me, you piece of shit? What makes you think it's okay to say that in my house, my home, my sanctuary away from people like you? This particular episode ended with my friend taking her idiot husband outside and suggesting that perhaps such comments, however mild, should be repressed around me, but the damage was done. If men are icebergs, I no longer want to know what hideousness lies beneath his surface.

My next examples hurt more, both because of severity and because, well, the perpetrators and I are composed of essentially the same genetic material. You betcha, I gots some racists in my family. My brother, a dentist with some 20 years of education, a born-again Christian who oozes Jesus' love out of every pore, is an unabashed racist. He is a regular user of the n-word. And not in any spontaneous "Some n-word just cut me off!" fashion, either. He enjoys using the word. It clearly makes him feel superior. When our old high school considered installing metal detectors, I of course thought of Columbine. Not my brother.

"It all went to hell after the n-word moved in."

Unlike with the Serena Williams incident, where my hands were somewhat tied, I have no desire to get along with my brother. I told him that what he said was moronic and offensive. You know what's coming next. I'm an overly sensitive purveyor of "political correctness." That little bit of hilarity aside, I'm left with similar feelings: What makes you think it's okay to say this to me? Maybe I was adopted.

My sister, meanwhile, doesn't even wait for an excuse to use the n-word. She uses it like you or I use pronouns. She too has 20 years of education, but eight of them were spent in the third grade. To my horror, she send out broad-distribution email in which she recounted a story where she and her husband rooted through a burned-out building and emerged covered in soot, looking like-you-know-whats. With two exclamation points. Ha, ha. What makes you think it's okay to say this to....my god, look at all the names...all of us?

Sometimes 2000 miles' distance ain't nearly enough.

the chiding young black

I'm developing a new prejudice myself, and it's one I could just as soon live without. I no longer want to discuss race with young blacks. All too often, such conversations end with me being chided, dismissed. I used to talk about racial matters with blacks under the age of 40 all the time. It was an everyday, unspectacular, often humorous dialogue, like talking about current events. We were simply discussing the state of our world, sharing our very different experiences, and we gave audience analysis very little thought. I no longer feel as though I can do this freely.

I don't know what's changed. I'm older, certainly. I've moved from a black neighborhood in a city that's 24% black to white neighborhoods in a city that's 8% black. And there's been a weird backlash from whiny white guys, who bitch and moan about "reverse discrimination" and the trifling inconveniences of measures that combat gross injustices. I hate those guys, too, and I fear that my looking like them sometimes makes my motives suspect. I don't discount those significant variables. But honestly, and I offer not a shred of evidence to back up this feeling, I think it's this point in history. I don't think it's a coincidence that I still can comfortably discuss race with people old enough to remember the civil rights era—hence my "under 40" disclaimer. We're a generation removed from the civil rights era, now, and people who have grown up enjoying rights previously denied people like themselves are, well, different. At least they discuss race differently. I'm sure we all discuss race differently from the previous generation, whatever our hue.

In my previous life, a deliberate plucking of the racial line was a sign of comfort and acceptance. The example that leaps to mind was a common accusation of the day: that white people referred to black athletes by their first name and white athletes by their last, and that this was some sort of diminishment of black athletes. It's obvious to any fair-minded person that Magic is "Magic" and Bird is "Bird" simply because "Johnson" and "Larry" are dull, undistinctive names. (Poor Larry Johnson.) Just like Jordan is "Jordan" and not "Michael" and Peyton is "Peyton" and not "Manning." The charge was pure silliness, and we all knew it. We used humor to defuse the issue.

"Don't call me 'Shaun' anymore. Racist mu'fugga, always diminishing me. To you, I'm Mister Thompson from now on"

"Yeah. You keep dreaming, pal."

"Don't call me 'pal' anymore, either. I ain't your 'I got black friends' friend."

"Why would I brag about having black friends? I'm ashamed of you mothirfuckirs."

And so forth. It was an innocent, everyday exchange spawned from comfort with one another and discomfort with some loud people who happened to look like us. It's important to note the element of satire. We found it reassuring and therapeutic to make fun of people who would much rather we distrust one another. End result: more trust.

Now, let's imagine what that exchange would be like if it happened today between me and a chiding young black. Based on my experience, this is what I'd expect:

"Sports announcers use blacks' first names to diminish them."

Their pronouncement will have no trace of satire. I'll give my counter-example. They'll sigh. "It's racist," they'll intone, apparently expecting me to either 1) acquiesce and agree or 2) agree and acquiesce. My choice.

Now, when one person, any person, makes an accusation against an individual, I expect them to meet a nominal burden of proof. All the more so when it's as grave an accusation as racism. A lifetime of calling bullshit on people has taught me that when you ask for proof, you're often greeted with irritation. But until recently, the pattern of people who were irritated was random. No longer. I have met an entire demographic who thinks my expectation of evidence is unreasonable. Ask them to meet a burden of proof at your own peril.

"What's your proof? For every anecdotal example you cite, I can give a counter example. You call someone 'racist,' and you better have more than a feeling. That's a serious charge."

So far, so good. This is the same argument I make all the time to people of all colors and flavors: I've heard your conclusion; what are your premises? And normally, the person either lists them, admits indulgence, or reacts with hostility. But not the chider.

Are you ready? Here it comes. The granddaddy of all trump cards, the nuclear bomb designed to put me in my place and end the debate in a rout.

"You just don't know what it's like to be black."

Another chiding young black will chime agreement right away.

"No white guy could. The first-name/last-name thing couldn't really be for any other reason, but he'll never see that. A white guy couldn't possibly know the inner thoughts of whites as well we do."

Okay, I made that last line up, but that's what I hear. Outnumbered and buckling from the sheer weight of their evidence, I put my alabaster tail between my legs and scurry off, never again to question their pronouncements of racism. Okay, that's not true either, but the attack does discourage dialogue and encourage discomfort, and it does diminish my viewpoint based not upon its merit but upon my skin color, and those ain't exactly gains. End result: less trust.

I wouldn't have thought it, but the unfiltered white racist and the chiding young black do have something in common after all. All together now: What makes you think it's okay to say that to me?

posted by john at 07:38 AM  •  permalink

December 29, 2005

god damn thee merry, gentlemen

Just when I thought I'd gotten out of the holidays free and clear, along comes a belated "I love you" from someone I don't know well and who I can't stand. This would be my sister. Not either of the sisters who visited me this year—the third one, known in my circle simply as "the bad sister." Let's call her Nadine.

In a family in which everyone bad-mouths everyone else and manufactures nonsense to be offended about, Nadine is the undisputed Queen of All Nonsense. Half of my communications from home are about who she's not speaking to and/or is not speaking to her. (No amount of my telling them "I truly don't give a crap. Please stop sharing." dissuades family members from holding a phone to their answering machine and leaving on my voice-mail the angry message a sibling had left for them.) As for me, I fall in and out of favor with Nadine without my doing a thing. "Nadine's furious with you," I'm informed, even though nothing whatsoever has been said between us since I was in favor. This year, apparently, I'm in and everyone else is out. This unwelcome status manifested in a large package arriving yesterday.

Nadine has taken up oil painting, and god help me, she sent me not one but two oil paintings. I'll grant that they're better than I can do, but that's an exceedingly low bar. From anyone else, I'd likely think them thoughtful, even touching gifts. From Nadine, though, all they inspire is one thought: only she would presume to claim wall space in a stranger's house.

I see a letter attached. Crap. How long will it take her to go negative? Answer: not long.

Rather than put sic after every mistake, I'll just note that this is verbatim.

My dearest brother,

People in our family have no clue to who their sister really is........
They still think back to the younger days of my youth, where many trials, lessons, and hardships were.

Although many in our family have not moved on from that mentality, I have.

For the past few years I have expanded my horizons and worked on things in my life I had always wanted to do such as Genealogy as well as my Oil Painting.

I remember as a child, and in 7th grade, the teacher wanting me to take an Art Class, and Dad refused due to the financial end of it.

I remind you, this is a Christmas letter.

Enclosed are two artworks for you dear brother...... Both painted with the hands that once cuddled you, and comforted your heart. You to have grown, yet others do not see the man that is before them. I do.....

Ah, my annual Yuletide "Dad was a bastard and everyone hates me but not as much as they hate you" card from home. It's like I never left.

posted by john at 11:05 AM  •  permalink

god damn thee merry, gentlemen

Just when I thought I'd gotten out of the holidays free and clear, along comes a belated "I love you" from someone I don't know well and who I can't stand. This would be my sister. Not either of the sisters who visited me this year—the third one, known in my circle simply as "the bad sister." Let's call her Nadine.

In a family in which everyone bad-mouths everyone else and manufactures nonsense to be offended about, Nadine is the undisputed Queen of All Nonsense. Half of my communications from home are about who she's not speaking to and/or is not speaking to her. (No amount of my telling them "I truly don't give a crap. Please stop sharing." dissuades family members from holding a phone to their answering machine and leaving on my voice-mail the angry message a sibling had left for them.) As for me, I fall in and out of favor with Nadine without my doing a thing. "Nadine's furious with you," I'm informed, even though nothing whatsoever has been said between us since I was in favor. This year, apparently, I'm in and everyone else is out. This unwelcome status manifested in a large package arriving yesterday.

Nadine has taken up oil painting, and god help me, she sent me not one but two oil paintings. I'll grant that they're better than I can do, but that's an exceedingly low bar. From anyone else, I'd likely think them thoughtful, even touching gifts. From Nadine, though, all they inspire is one thought: only she would presume to claim wall space in a stranger's house.

I see a letter attached. Crap. How long will it take her to go negative? Answer: not long.

Rather than put sic after every mistake, I'll just note that this is verbatim.

My dearest brother,

People in our family have no clue to who their sister really is........
They still think back to the younger days of my youth, where many trials, lessons, and hardships were.

Although many in our family have not moved on from that mentality, I have.

For the past few years I have expanded my horizons and worked on things in my life I had always wanted to do such as Genealogy as well as my Oil Painting.

I remember as a child, and in 7th grade, the teacher wanting me to take an Art Class, and Dad refused due to the financial end of it.

I remind you, this is a Christmas letter.

Enclosed are two artworks for you dear brother...... Both painted with the hands that once cuddled you, and comforted your heart. You to have grown, yet others do not see the man that is before them. I do.....

Ah, my annual Yuletide "Dad was a bastard and everyone hates me but not as much as they hate you" card from home. It's like I never left.

posted by john at 11:05 AM  •  permalink

December 07, 2005

sleep in heavenly peace

Many people romanticize the dead. Misdeeds are forgotten like credit card debt, and even the most hateful people are beatified. Like so many social niceties, this ability eludes me. Bitch in life, bitch in death, I say.

Which brings us to Mom.

In all fairness, my mom had a brutally hard life, and not coincidentally she wasn't much of a mother or human being. She was an orphan at 9, raised by cousins. She married my abusive dad and bore five children, three of whom estranged themselves from her. By age 8, I was taking photos of her battered face, as evidence. I thought this was normal. An impoverished single mother at 45, and with only a degree in home economics (!) to fall back on, she wiped butts for a living until she finally contracted cancer and checked herself into the hospital where she worked. Cancer, remission, cancer again. One morning, she was driving herself to her radiation treatment when a guy turned right on red in front of her vehicle, clipping her and sending her car careening off a 50-foot high bridge on to a rock embankment below. The impact pulverized several of her vertebrae—in between breakfast and lunch, her height went from 5'5" to 5'2". In addition to the aforementioned poverty and several flavors of cancer, now she battled paralysis and acute claustrophobia until her merciful death at 52.

Right. In her shoes, not many among us would be a great parent. You have to have your own house in order before you can help build someone else's. For that reason, I give her a pass. Although I can't pretend she was kind, I can understand why she wasn't.

But.

Like many mothers, mine nailed herself to a cross every Christmas. There was screaming. Bawling. Jealousy. Guilt trips. If we kids so much as spent Christmas Eve with Dad, cue the histrionics. One year, my brother and I spent Christmas Eve and morning with her, intending to head up to Dad's Christmas night. I knew I was getting a bike, and I had every intention of collecting. The theatrics were otherworldly. We were "hateful" for going. My brother, putting himself through school, spent a week's salary on a new phone for Mom. She opened it and snorted, visibly disgusted. "I wanted almond." We stared at her. "This is beige." I, meanwhile, had spent vast sums of grasscutting monies on a butcher block. Mom's knives rolled around freely in the utensil drawer, you see, and her doctor had warned that in her condition, any cut could be fatal. "What a waste of money," she snapped. "I already have knives." And on and on. While my brother and I played cards in the living room, thanklessly running out the clock until we left for Dad's, my mom bawled in her bedroom, at one point opening the door so that we could hear her better.

The next year, she slid into a coma on Christmas Eve. The Wailing Christmas would effectively be her last, the indelible yuletide memory of herself she implanted in her kid's memory. I've thought of her pathos every Christmas since.

The lesson has been lasting. I have an allergic aversion to my mother's sort of theatrics. Since I don't know when my own time is up, I try to treat every holiday and milestone as my last. Not for me. Not even for my loved ones. For my legacy. Who wants to be remembered every Christmas hence as a miserable, self-pitying, jealous person who's better off dead?

Merry Christmas, Mom. You always did find the perfect gift.

posted by john at 07:18 AM  •  permalink

July 29, 2005

happy birthday, dad

On this, what would have been my father's 70-somethingth birthday, I am very pleased to report that the bigoted, wife-beating, child-beating, child-molesting (this one's new!), cross-dressing, diploma-drooling, binge-drinking inventor of the anti-aircraft sparrow remains quite dead.

How's the weather, Dad? It's not the humidity, you know. It's the heat.

posted by john at 09:02 AM  •  permalink

June 30, 2005

family fun

And so, on a day when someone else reported seeing four types of whales, my family made me go to the Space Needle and Pike Place Market. I got goosebumps. Really.

They're gone now. Where's that key again?

•  •  •

Linda, 11 years my senior, had two stories I'd never heard. Apparently my personality was set in stone at a very young age.

• Scene: my saintly Polish-Catholic immigrant grandmother was over for a visit. I was around 18 months, still in my high chair, and she had never heard me speak. Event: I dropped my mashed potatoes, which hit the ground with a splat. "Oh, God DAMN it!!" I yelled. My blasphemy exploded into quite the scandal.
• Scene: two years later, in the funeral processional for my Aunt Helen, I was in the backseat. Event: I turned around and gave the finger to some grieving cousins. Again, much mayhem ensued.

posted by john at 06:08 AM  •  permalink

June 27, 2005

where’s that key?

• Friends
• Love interests
• Bar skanks
• Co-workers
• Co-worker skanks
• Ed's dog-sitter, who I found over the Internet
• Various maids, none of whom I've met
• Electricians and plumbers
• Jen, whom I've never met
• Carl, the cabinet guy sent by Lowe's
• Nameless Russian immigrant floor installers

These are all people who've had unfettered access to my house. Yet with family coming tomorrow night, I find myself locking cabinets for the first time. Hmmmmm.

posted by john at 07:44 AM  •  permalink

January 01, 1800

if you’ve ever wondered who voted for Bush twice, wonder no more

My sister-in-law Maria is a throwback to the turn of the century. The 3rd century. She married her high school boyfriend at the worldly age of 18, and, not much seeing the point of getting her Mrs. degree when she already had her Mr., she instead became a rollickin' fundamentalist and raised their three kids in a hermetically sealed environment where Harry Potter books are banned and Jesus controls such minutia as who wins the election for class treasurer. With no sense of irony whatsoever, she will talk about Jesus' love out of one side of her mouth and utter the vilest hate out of the other. Her utter lack of curiosity about the world—I've never known her to read, travel, or in any way educate herself beyond being told how righteous she is by fellow churchgoers—inhibits her not at all. No, she is a bona fide expert on matters she knows nothing about, and she makes sure you know it. To say she is a gossip is inadequate. Remember Gladys Kravitz on Bewitched? Breed her with Jimmy Swaggart and give their love child an 8-ball of cocaine, and you'd have Maria.

When I was 19 myself, my relationship was teetering, and I was in danger of flunking out of college, so I withdrew. I tried again the next quarter, but my mind was still on my relationship, so I withdrew again. I did not tell my family, whose first through 92nd instincts are to attack, about my withdrawing. I didn't really need the additional grief, what with their already perforating me about my relationship issues. So I told them I was still in school. Suspicious, Maria took it upon herself to call the registrar and prove this was a lie. She trumpeted the news of my failure and cover-up to the four corners of the world. Fortunately for me, her world is exceedingly small.

You might think it all youthful sound and fury, signifying nothing, but it proved to be the enduring, defining moment of our relationship. Lo these many years later, nearly two decades in which Maria's seen me for maybe 20 hours, she still basks in triumph. I am a proven liar. This is established. It is what defines me. It is all she knows of me, or cares to know. You know John? Oh, he's a pathological liar now. I'd feel sorry for him if he weren't such a liar all the time. School? Career? House? Probably all lies. Any money he has is probably from selling drugs, but I'm not sure about that one. He has nothing to do with me because I know what a liar he is.

This is now a joke amongst my friends. If I say I'm picking a family member up at the airport at 3:00, Allie will press my Maria button. She insists on using an elongated y for maximum effect.

"Are you really, or are you lyyyyyyy-ing again?"
"Fuck you also."

It's a reliable button.

These days, conversations with Maria are the toll I have to pay in order to talk to my brother. They invariably go down one path: my continued friendships with ex-girlfriends.

"So, are you still in touch with, um," she'll say, pretending she doesn't have the name handy in her phoneside RIMS (Rolodex of Intelligence info and Malicious Speculation), "Allie?"

"Yeah. She's one of my closest friends. She's family."
Maria doesn't pick up on what I thought was an unsubtle dig. In fact, judgment is swift and scornful.

"See, I don't get that. I don't get that at all. If your brother still hung out with his ex-girlfriend, it would drive me insane. Insane!"

My mind parses the Fellini movie that are my disjointed memories of the 70s, searching for anyone else my brother might have ever dated.

"You mean...Tina from the 10th grade?"

"Yeah! I would be sooooo jealous."

"Well, believe it or not, relationships change a bit after high school." Another unsubtle dig impacts harmlessly on her surface.

"And [insert some girl's name] didn't mind?"

"Not a bit. I'm upfront about it from the first date."

"Are you sure? I think it's probably what broke you up," she'll declare (and no, she has no more information than this post contains).

"I'm sure," I growl, realizing for the first time that this is the speculation in Ohio.

"And what about Allie's boyfriend?"

"He's my fishing buddy."

"That's just so weird."

"Compared to what? It's not that uncommon. If we loved and enjoyed one another when we were a couple, why can't that evolve? Why would it end just because we're not right for each other romantically? My life isn't that black and white."

Maria ponders, scouring her world for an apt analogy.

"So it's like Ross and Rachel."

The right lobe of my brain fires off a quick message of sympathy to the left lobe: Yeah. I heard it too. Jesus H. Christ. Just say yes and ask for your brother again.

"Um, I guess. Only we don't, you know, secretly want to get back together. And, um, we really exist."

"It's just so weird, John."

"Yeah. So is my brother back yet?"

posted by john at 12:00 AM  •  permalink

the most chilling 5-word phrase

Originally published April 11, 2005

I was getting breakfast at the MetamuMart this morning and a horrifying flyer caught my eye:

First Annual Metamuville Talent Show

"How many spoons acts can you stand?" I asked Kiki, the store owner.

"It gets worse," she groaned. "There are no fewer than three square dancing demos."

This got me thinking. What are the five scariest-assed words in the English language? "First Annual Metamuville Talent Show" is bad, but not the worst. I see four distinct genres.

You have the professional:

• Can you shut the door?
• Stop fishing the company pier!
• We are making some changes.
• Thank you for your contributions.
• Khristi is in your building.

The familial:

• Will you be my executor?
• I just arrived at SeaTac.
• Maria has a new theory.
• How much do you make/did this cost?
• I'll pay you right back.

The friendshippy:

• So, I have some news!
• That's not what Karen said.
• How goes the love life?
• So I have this friend.

The romantic:

• Know what your problem is?
• My parents are both living.
• How old is this condom?
• Did the condom just tear?
• I'm late. I'm never late.
• Oh. Yeah. I'm HIV positive.

and my winner, also romantic:

• We really need to talk.

posted by john at 12:00 AM  •  permalink

family is relative

Originally published June 13, 2005

julie

Everything you need to know about Percy & Thelm@ and my sister Julie are contained neatly in one anecdote. That is, this encounter is typical of my every encounter with these people. To fully appreciate the anecdote, know that I left out nothing. This was the unembellished sum total of their contact.

Having not seen Percy and Thelm@ for the first couple days of Julie's stay, we finally saw Thelm@ poking her head out her door as Julie and I were departing.

As I climbed into my car, I hear my sister happily (and typically) scream "I'M HIS SISTER!!!" across the yard.

Thelm@, having no window overlooking my house nor any reason whatsoever to care, was nonetheless unsurprisingly unsurprised. "Yeah, that's what we were figuring. You were here before, right?"

"MY AIRLINE TICKET WAS $315 USUALLY I WAIT UNTIL IT'S $140 BUT THIS TIME WHEN IT GOT TO $315 I KNEW IT WOULD BE THE BEST I COULD DO BECAUSE YOU CAN'T FLY ANYWHERE FROM COLUMBUS FOR $139 ANYMORE!" my sister shrieked.

"Please shut up," I asked.

"What?!" My sister whirled, surprised. "I didn't want them to think that you were having some girl over."

"Huh? Who gives a crap?"

"She asked."

"No she didn't."

"Well, she waved when she saw us. She was curious."

"Of that, I have little doubt."

 

d’andre

d'Andre's much-anticipated visit was surprisingly mellow, for two reasons: 1) he brought his bride, the refined and ladylike Pam (henceforth d'Pam), who lent sorely needed sophistication to the occasion, and 2) we're mellow old codgers now. It was a pleasure to see my friend again and to compare our wildly divergent paths from our common point of origin to our not-too-dissimilar stations in life. It was a meeting of friends unlike any to which I've previously been a party. It was a comprehensive catching up, a touchstone, a status report covering 14 dramatic years in which we'd both known everything from abject failure to giddy accomplishment. 14 years. That's, like, 56% of a Jen. And we covered all 14 in great detail—we literally began with my driving the U-Haul out of the apartment complex. There's something uniquely bonding about originating from the same time and place and circumstance, a feeling conspicuously absent from my life. And the more we talked, the more I came to appreciate my commonalities with my friend and foil. I think even d'Pam learned something about her husband and from where he came. If I know women at all, she went to bed prouder of him than she'd been the night before.

We watched the passing lights in the shipping lanes, our feet on the fire pit and margaritas in our hands, toasting one another and friends long gone. "Who'd have thought one of us'd be here?"  d'Andre mused, shaking his head.

"Who'd have thought one of us would marry a Ph.D in biochemistry?" I added.

A nearly sheepish d'Andre bussed the beautiful Dr. on the cheek. "Who'd have thought she'd marry one of us?"

I clinked his cactus glass. "Here's to marrying up."

•  •  • 

All right, thanks for indulging me. I know what you came for. There weren't many insults, but here ya go.

• The first and best point was scored by—no surprise here—D. He had not seen me since I was in the peak physical condition of my life. As they passed the security station at Seatac, he saw me, stopped, stared, cocked his head, and said, "Santa?"
• Not that he's not a tad bovine himself these days. "Rerun?" I replied, in my imagination six days later when I finally thought of a response.
• When we got into my Jeep, I had Careless Whisper on the stereo. He looked at d'Pam knowingly. "Who called it?" Yeah, but did he call the vintage George Michael/Andrew Ridgely poster on the back of the guest room door? No.
• Of my modern physique: "You're not 'Eggre' anymore. You're 'The Cracker Barrel.'" Then Pam hit him.
• Of my Jeep: "The cracker box." Then Pam hit him.

I'm pro-Pam.

posted by john at 12:00 AM  •  permalink

who would jesus slander?

Originally published June 11, 2005

My older sister's visit supplied a few more theories circulating about me back home. My born again Christian brother and sister-in-law, no doubt emulating Christ's well-documented malicious speculation about people he didn't know, have publicly declared the following:

• When I psuedo-married Elan in Vegas, I lied. I really got married.
• A decade ago when I took my friend Tammy to my sister's wedding, she wasn't really my friend. She was someone I hired from an escort service. (Although stunning runway models will secretly marry me, I apparently have no friends I can use as wedding dates.)
• The Approval Whore wasn't really my girlfriend. She was a friend who was lying for me for four years and is now suddenly gone. (I apparently now have friends and  no longer need to hire escorts, which I guess is progress. I haven't figured out where Elan went that a fake girlfriend became necessary, though. It's all so confusing.)
• My house is not really my house. It's a rental I use to fool Julie when she's here...because I'm a druggie, you see, and I couldn't afford both the house and the drugs...because I gotta be on drugs...because there's no other possible explanation for my disliking people as kind as them.
• They know me better than Julie, the only family member to see me in the last eight years, the only one to come to my home, and the only one who's spent more than a couple hours in my presence in 18 years. Because she's gullible, you see.

As you can see, they are fantastically central to my universe. Like Annette observed: "They think they're so damn important that you'd bother to put on that dog and pony show for them? No matter how you swing it, it's a me, me, me thing."

I can't help but see parallels between these intellectual giants' zealous, truth-be-damned beliefs about me and their equally zealous, equally spurious religious beliefs. It's all about being right, about being better, about telling everyone—damn the abundant evidence to the contrary. And you know they must be right, 'cause they agree with one another so fervently.

Praise the lord and tighten my blinders, honey!

• • •

In trying to explain their zeal—why their John mythology is so obviously more important to them than John himself—Julie offers the following explanation: "They just don't understand why you don't want anything to do with them."

Should I send it gift-wrapped?

posted by john at 12:00 AM  •  permalink