Black Sheep Never Cry
Dedicated to the memory of John F. Kennedy, Jr.
By Lori Finnila
Copyright © 2010 Lori Finnila
LJ Publishing
Table of Contents
Part 1 What I Knew Of Love
Part 2 Grown Up
Part 3 The Sacrifice For My Father
Part 4 My Son
Part 5 Out Of Come
Part 6 I Panicked As I Ran
Part 7 Tim’s Anger Grew Towards The President
Part 8 Terry
Part 9 Remembering Tim
Part 10 They Left Me To My Neighbors
Part 11 Your Spirit
Part 12 My Sister
Part 13 The Senator’s Daughter
Part 14 The Mafia Attack
Part 15 Time To Let Go
Part 16 The Closing
Part 1-What I Knew of Love
To my father figure, whoever he was who gave me love and showed me what life was even though I never got to touch or see him. Freedom: to touch real love or really feel the real free feeling of life for more than five minutes at a time.
There used to be a lake outside of my school where we would play a lot after school. There was a running stream going through it that would never freeze, not enough to walk on. If you would take one step on it in the winter even with the ice frozen you would fall through and drown.
The ice was so crystal clear. I could see through to the bottom. Something inside of me said it was okay. I reluctantly walked towards the water feeling death and then the rush as I ran towards the opportunity to dance with it.
I started to run and dance as I was laughing and slipping and sliding as the ice was cracking under my feet. I could feel them come in finally. I wondered where they were and when they would come in. One yelled at me to get off and the other said it was okay, the older one. I laughed as I slid across the cracking water and pushed my face against the ice so thin you could see through it. The old on, the one I call my father, said it was okay. “You can dance to it just this once. I’ll keep you above it,” he said and I felt him come inside of me and I had no conscience of anyone around me as I ran across that ice. When I was done playing I felt him safely let me off on the high ridge of the pine needles. I thought, Oh God! That was unreal. And he said, “Just this once, you’d better never do it again.” He sounded so much like the big fat man in the cellar area of my uncle’s place.
My uncle owned this club where all the adults would go and have their parties. The men would go downstairs and get drunk or pack boxes or unpack them, at least that is what my uncle always said that he was doing. We were never to go down there. It was a rule, the golden rule. I used to think that you would be killed.
One day my mother who was too lazy to get me a coke on her own made me, a little three-year-old, go down to the men’s area at the bottom of the club and get my coke. I said, “But, Mom, you’re not supposed to go down there.” And she said, ”Oh just shut up and go down there and get yourself a coke and leave me alone,” as she stuffed her mouth with food.
I looked at the bartender upstairs as I saw him pouring cokes and I said very scared, “They have cokes up here. Why can’t I get it up here?” She replied searching for words, “I don’t know. They don’t have any more up here. Just go down,” as the bartender upstairs was now looking at me with tears in his eyes. I could hear her telling him that they weren’t going to hurt me and he seemed to feel better, if he only knew. My mother loved her food. I said one last time, “But we’re not supposed to go down there,” whining now and scared to be around the grown men by myself and go down those big stairs.
The food was good to my mother seeing as she grew up in a poor country on a dirt floor with outhouses and only fish to eat in the morning because that’s all her father did for work. And he was a drunk, she said. I don’t know because I never met him. He died in her native land in some mental hospital. I was told that we were not supposed to talk about it. He didn’t die before beating my mother in front of my father though. Before my father married her he would kiss her goodnight after dates and my mother would be beaten for it. If not him, my uncle, her brother, would take the role. It didn’t sound like she had a good life, before my father anyway.
She had all her gums cut one year because she never brushed her teeth out there. It’s a wonder my father married her and she even looked good enough for him. And I never could understand how my father was such a jock with all this smoke and booze in here. I asked for a coke and the bartender offered me one with CHERRIES!! I thought, Oh boy!! I wasn’t afraid now, it wasn’t so bad. That weird funny feeling at the doorway that said don’t come in was a little scary but now that I’m in here it doesn’t seem so bad at all. They’re just regular people. I didn’t even want to come down here. That’s when this man cut into our conversation and noticed me and said, “What? Huh? What are you doing?” talking to me.
The bartender said, “She just wanted a coke.” “Oh yea, don’t they know that they’re not supposed to be down here?” he said. I had quite an attitude about me. I guess I was born with it. So I turned around and just looked at him and stared and tried to glare. But he didn’t flinch at all. So the big fat man said, “We’re going to get rid of him anyway.” I just looked at him in shock, the bartender that is, he was shaking by this time and I didn’t notice he was trying to give me a message to get help.
He said, “Get help from someone upstairs,” as he shook fiercely at this time. I couldn’t help thinking, What? Are they going to get rid of this poor guy and why? All he did is give me a coke. I guess the bartender figured that he wouldn’t get out of there on his own.
There were about ten of them down there, mostly relatives to me. I only knew the warmth of them from my grandmother who used to bring me around them with her. She would never let anything happen to me. So I then took my coke with cherries and started towards the door, very positively at this time too. The big fat man just glared at me as I did at him as I walked by. I could feel him coming through me as I felt in the doorway before I entered. I didn’t know what it was but I wasn’t scared because I usually felt warmth when I felt this feeling. But this time he was glaring hard and I glared back showing him that I was not going to be scared of him. Someone came in out of nowhere and said, “She is abused,” talking about me and that I had to be watched. I felt repugnant.
The fat man quickly replied, “I’ll have to watch her.” And I thought, Watch me? Watch me for what? What would this big fat man be watching me for that he is qualified to do where I am concerned? Never knew what he meant but I walked out of there and proceeded up the stairs to the function hall where everyone else was.
Once I got up there I started to remember and frantically tried to find a face that I could trust, of course no one that I know, that would not be good, this man needed real help. Everyone else in my mind would just hurt him and not rescue him. Weirdly enough my grandmother did not look like one I could trust. I saw a stranger, they must be good. I went to run and low and behold my uncle ran up the stairs just at that moment before I could run and speak and I felt that warm feeling of grab come through me as I turned to look at him and he yelled, “What did she hear!” Everyone stopped what they were doing and looked up. I don’t know what they thought but I guess that they were supposed to believe that I had just heard a grown-up thing. That is why my uncle ended up trying to laugh toward the end of that statement. He caught my attention once more and he opened his arms wide and sad, “Come here. I’m going to take you somewhere safe.” All I could think of was a trunk in the back of a car and then suddenly a thought came quick into my mind of another home, a warm and safe one and somehow my feelings changed fast and I smiled wide and went to run to him. Now my grandmother was heated.
She jumped up and said, “No!! Stop!!” before he even was able to get to me and said, “You’re not taking her anywhere!” And I thought what’s all the fuss at that point, I wanted to go.
Then my uncle replied, “You’re going to have to watch her.” She had some tears a little in her eyes by now and I was drawn to her and led to her table.
My mother hadn’t been that good to me lately. She used to tie me to the cellar stairs in my diapers to keep me out of the way and when I would try to climb up the feel of the hard wood against my tender skin would try and grab splinters as I would just about make it up three steps and be in tears being able to see her face by now, she would shoo me back down again.
She did try and make me take half of a bottle of baby aspirin when I was three and I woke up one night when I was just a baby at almost two in my twin bed to feel my head being put in between the mattress and the bed frame. I lost all track of time then but woke up in a stiff fright gagging for air when I felt some mysterious strength push the mattress down and safely guide my head out. My mother screamed in extreme dismay to see that I was out of the hold I was in. She screamed, “She’s out! She got out!! Oh God, what am I going to do now?” As someone came in hooked up and consoled her and came to me and yelled at me to get back to sleep.
I was so scared I jumped back into a sleeping position. They seemed to be more careful with me after that. My father wanted to kill her when there was question about the baby aspirin but someone came in and shut my mouth before I could speak of what had actually happened. Then there was the time that I got my vaccination at school which got infected and she told the nurse not to report it, that she would blame her for it seeing as she gave it to me and to leave it alone after she had come by to look at it at my mother’s request. The nurse told my mother that I needed a doctor. My mother said to just let it heal. I ended up with a hole in my arm which she remind me about and warns me and says that I can die from it if anyone gets too close. She then later in life told me that I would die for her and that if I ever said anything bad about her that she would make it worse for me and if I said good things about her then things would be easier on me. These things were always on the phone though, so you can never count them.
I went and sat down next to my grandmother where one of my aunts was sitting now. She was cold and scary and made this face at me and said, “Your father is really not your father,” as I could feel this cold weird feeling coming from her. And all I could do was get shocked from that statement about the man that I had been living with and known to be my real father. And everything else that had happened so far that night I would forget. And I did forget about that man downstairs. My grandmother nodded to her suggestion and agreed with the ridiculous statement that was just thrown my way. I remember thinking, I am not sure what was said downstairs but this cake is sure good.
Part 2-Grown Up
My father was so handsome. He was very shy. I could not understand why, he had so much going for him. I had his eyes. His were blue-gray and mine were green-brown which for some reason when I got older would change colors to a blueish gray or green, never brown anymore. Everyone else’s in my family’s were brown or close to it, certainly not two different colors that shone like mine.
I was going to write a book when I was twenty-four but the mafia stopped me. Little did I know what it all would mean down the road to me when I really understood what it all was.
I was the kind of girl (child) who thought that if you did everything right God would reward you and make sure that your life turned out right. I was raised a very strict Catholic and apparently God was the only thing that I had to fall back on as far as a strong spirit.
My grandmother would make me walk down a straight aisle out in the open when we had to go to church. I could still smell the liquor from my grandfather’s beer on my white gloves. And there was no way that I was going to get away with communion. The bread would always get stuck to the roof of my mouth and that would scare me just as it did if I had to put my fingers in my mouth to scrape it out. The priest would sometimes look at me and stare at me as though I had done something wrong.
We would go to dinner afterwards, it was always on a Saturday, always at these family owned restaurants where I could feel that warm stuff all over the place. The food was good, but I was never supposed to suck the bottom of my soda ice cubes through the straw. It made too much noise and my grandmother would always curse me. I couldn’t figure out whether she loved me or not.
I would be playing on our swing set hanging upside down on the bars as my shirt would come up over my head when she would come over, heck I was only ten. She would yell at me and say, ”Get down from there and act like a lady,” and then give up and say, “You’re such a tomboy anyway.”
My sister and I would play windmill all the time at my direction. It is when you hold the other person’s feet up and they walk on their hands. I guess my grandmother knew it was in my direction because she would only yell at me. I could never figure out why she would get so mad.
That summer I wasn’t allowed in the home of some family members who we were visiting. My mother had said that the relatives who were staying outside could not go inside which meant everyone else in our family that drove all the way up there, but that it was only me that they were really worried about. My grandmother went in, they were also camping out in the farm fields as us. I thought it to be weird that we never saw the people of the place that we were camping on. My mother cried when she told me I had to stay out in the farm area with someone in my family the whole trip. I believe that I used to hear, they don’t want this stuff in here. I wasn’t sure if my mother was kidding or she wanted to just try and make me feel bad by telling a tall tale. She was mean and calculating at times.
I had a big scratch on my face when we were out there. It was there because I was a tomboy, I guess. I kind of felt ugly because of it but I rolled in the high grass as my father played ball with the other kids. I couldn’t be bothered. I wanted to try and get attention from some of the neighborhood boys that had now just joined us to maybe play ball. My father was watching and waiting for them to join. I started to smile at them and roll on the grass in hopes that they would want to watch me and notice me. They watched but they didn’t say anything. I thought that they would have made a comment by now about how pretty I was, but they just stared. By now I felt bad. I knew that this scratch on my face was holding me back. This whole day maybe this whole vacation was ruined by a stupid big scratch. I told them, “This scratch won’t be here forever.”
They just got surprised and startled at me and jumped a little to hear me say that and replied, “Oh, you’re still very pretty.” I felt better now. I said, “I am? I mean you think I am?” And they said, “Oh yeah!” Now I believed them. Now I felt better. As just then my real father came in a little, I could feel him now. “I just wanted to see how the boys felt,” I said. His brows went up and his anger grew at that point and he flared it a little towards me but it just bounced off of me and now he was somewhat concentrating on the boys, ordering them to play ball if they were there, “TO PLAY!” They shook and said, “Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah,” and ran quickly towards my father. He gave me a frustrated look and walked away. I just pushed my nose up a little in the air as to say no one is going to make me feel bad. I would just run in the fields and play in the grass as I loved to make myself feel loved and wonderful. I could feel the tall grass running through my body. I loved the songs that dancers and ballerinas would dance to. I always had to dance. I thought music was perfect to show off all of my great moves. I would run to the side window of our house where my mother would wash dishes to dance to the songs on the radio in front of her hoping she would see. I would make my best moves and hope that she would be in amazement and see my real true talent and maybe enter me into a dance class. All she did was say that she knew what I was trying to do.
I also was always in the doctor’s office sick. My mother said it was because my father would blow the smoke of his cigarettes in my face and she couldn’t stop it. My doctor was the only doctor that my mother was allowed to take us children to. This doctor would never look into any of the mishaps of me when I would be rushed into her office in emergency.
It was always much after the fact and the facts never seemed to be important to her or exactly how it happened. And I could never understand why my doctor’s husband was a doctor. He was a mean man that hid in the other non-used room of the doctor’s office and would pop out at you at any given time when you weren’t ready. He told me I was going to have to be an actor to get out of this one. I didn’t know what he was talking about. All I knew is that I was there to go to see a farm with animals. But there weren’t any animals in here in this room. My doctor tried to scare me to see if I knew what a farm was? I didn’t know of any farm close by to here I thought. My father would have had to drive us there and it was always planned when we went on a long journey. Local animals maybe?
I didn’t want to leave my mother at that time. The choices that they left me were slim. I was offered to stay with my doctor and her kids at her house. What would they want with me? I wasn’t their real child? But why would they want to threaten me if I didn’t want to go with them? I don’t remembering doing anything wrong. I was to feel that I was being disciplined somehow as my mother said that I had been very bad. I thought she didn’t even discuss that one with me at all on the way down here. As a matter of fact, I barely remembered the ride, probably because she always had me on something. She would buy out the pharmacy on any and every over-the-counter medicines and leave them in a large spot for me in the kitchen to take at her order. I used to fall asleep at school. She could have really fooled me. There was so much going on that I didn’t understand. I was still little. All I knew is that my mother wanted to take me to a farm. It was done a lot when you were little then. I never went to a farm. I do remember being in the hall on some sort of chair where the pictures on the wall were all moving around in circles slowly and some of the people that lived in the house went up and down the stairs as I could see them moving slowly and turning their heads towards me in dismay as my doctor and the nurse who worked there told them to ignore me. I must have passed out because I would always end up home after that.
My grandmother did try and talk me into being a nun one time and going away to take care of people or they would take care of me. I couldn’t figure that one out.
Everything seemed normal on the onset in my life yet I started to notice things and actually hear things that I could remember. People talking to me, actually having a conversation with me without even being there . My family seemed normal. I had one brother and one sister. I was the middle child, the one that was supposed to be left out. Maybe I was abnormal because I was the middle child, but special, I was kind. But I was supposed to feel lost and left out, all the books said so. I kind of liked sun signs. My mother read a little bit of it to me. Mine seemed mysterious and special. I was a Gemini. It seemed as though my mother was trying to make it mysterious and special to me. She never acted like that. My father was calling me the black sheep of the family as I barely heard it or felt it and my mother was crying, saying I was planned. Thinking back on all of her pain of that day finding out that she was pregnant with me, not really planned at all. My book talked about all of the special traits that I had. My father said all that was rubbish.
Part 3-The Sacrifice for My Father
I saw my father that last time on that Thursday. I wasn’t visiting, I just needed a favor. Our relationship appeared that I would only call him in a jam. I had been trying to make it on my own to no avail. He cooked for me and seemed to purposely make something fatty for me that made me sick. He knew that I hated processed or fatty foods. They had always made me sick as a child. I loved my father even though I never got the affections that a daughter would get.
He loved my sister, cherished her. We were supposed to look up to her and do everything that she did. All she ever did for me was stick a cigarette in my mouth and pour liquor into my cup when I wasn’t looking.
That’s why I thought it was a joke when my father told me at thirty-one that she was going to have to watch me someday. I thought, What am I, a child? Does he think that I am that handicapped now? For a second I got scared and realized that I was in a criminal family and I may be being watched either for good reasons or bad ones on their part. I would try to hide that I felt this and thought it for a second. But shit! I think he knows, now comes the acting. My family is so backwards. Boy, was I defiant, and an idiot he is. But one of the guys came in just around then and let me know that they were on again, I think CIA. I could feel my father put in the word to let me go at that point. I wasn’t completely clear on what that meant but it was serious enough to call my protection on again and I think that was when Tim came on pretty seriously. Tim, he’s my love, but I’ll get into that more later. I could feel him. I knew his feel by now. The CIA had been trying to get me used to him. And this was good for him too, to have me for an assignment because it protected him. It was all planned out.
He was picked for me since he and I were children living in the same place at one time, and he agreed.
I was in somewhat of a state of shock by this whole thing and what was about to happen. All I felt is that my father wanted to kill me or hurt me in some way. I had no idea what was going on. But everything was so fast.
There were winds and swoops coming my way and trying to pull the life out of me and people were calling in from around the corner and trying to put towards me. I was being threatened about my sister and about Janet’s family (my best friend who passed) by my father and now Terry Brown (Janet’s cop friend) had come in. I could feel my sister-in-law (who is in the mafia) and her father from across the street.
“Italy!!” my father yelled. He was trying to figure out who I was dealing with who dealt with Italy. I cringed in my seat as I tried to recall everyone that I knew who had to do with Italy. I was going to go there one time but I didn’t know anyone there. “He has a lot to do with Italy. She’s going to marry him? Huh, isn’t that nice,” he said. I knew that the last statement wasn’t true or at least that is what he wanted me to think. But he was just mad and trying to get a reaction or more information out of me. This was serious stuff. I was so glad my life was somewhat outside of this and wondered why I wasn’t released from this whole thing or situation sooner. And my father would be the one to die. He had been telling me that day that it would be me.
I still don’t understand to this day the whole day or the whole thing because it was to get too out of hand even with people watching me. I really wasn’t involved in the family business per se if there is or was one and sure as heck wouldn’t be safe talking to cops about it seeing as though the mafia had it in with the cops in such and up and up way of everything. And the police in our town were even worse. They were more than well aware of what was going on in our town and I am sure had FBI connections. They had been in this comfortable position for quite a few years and no one would think to stop this. We were living in an up and coming neighborhood where there was supposedly no crime and they (the cops and everyone who lived here) would constantly boast about it. Except for the mysterious deaths occurring once in a while, it seemed like a perfectly normal place to live in.
Some people have big jobs where they try and get to people that want to get out. Was I one of those?
As a child as the separation of my parents’ relationship grew in our home the naturalness of my life started to disappear, almost the same as when my father died, I knew my life would never be the same again. But this visit seemed different. He was hooked up and I could always hear of course what the other person was saying, which no one ever knew as I was always being watched for my protection too. He didn’t know this as well. Our discussions grew more intense and I could hear someone coming in for me to listen to see and hear what was going on. My father was clearly mad. I had no idea what the outcome of the conversation would be. I could feel my insides being pulled. But I never prevailed. He stopped and took his breath for a second and changed paths with me.
He started to talk about the FBI and how I could count on them if things went all wrong. He said that he knew that I wouldn’t be afraid to deal with them. He cried and said that he hoped for this but I doubted his sincerity. He then came in coldly and let me know that, yes, he too had been in the mafia all of his life and that all my worst fears had come true and to be revealed right out in the open at that moment. I tried to run inside of myself at that moment as I had always done in the past and he seemed to have a hard time holding onto me. I felt so far from him and as though I was looking in on my last light and as though I never knew him at all. I was really never very close to him to begin with but this was the worst. I was scared and in a stranger’s house.
I wanted to cry and knew I had no one to go to for help or to cry to. It seemed as though it was our last conversation. I knew it. I could hear him talking to someone as they said that he was going to die. I got that helpless feeling in my body. I could feel that same organized crime feeling that I felt when I was three and walked in on that family meeting into that damn club and heard too much. Who was I? Was I real? Was I really there? Maybe I was an imagination of God and we all weren’t really here. Maybe I would wake up and not be here? I felt myself go numb.
I had a hard time explaining myself at that time because I was brain damaged and I was already tripping over my words. Everything seemed so far away and I kept feeling as though everyone knew what I was already thinking or trying to say instead of saying what I needed to say. It was always too hard for me then, and it certainly wasn’t the time for me to be having problems with this. I had to get myself out and try and understand and make some rational sense out of this so that I could get myself out, into some world, some kind of world that made sense and was uncomplicated.
The reason I use the term “organized crime” is because no one ever discussed anything with me so I only had my imagination to conclude what was going on. I was always told I was too young to be near the adults and have discussions with the adults and when I was old enough I was told forget it. Ew, that used to make me so mad. Who the hell do they think they are for not having such serious discussions with me as adult ones? I was never going to learn how to grow up. Forget college, I was never even spoken to about what kind of career path to take in high school.
All the guidance counselors were too scared to talk, maybe say the wrong thing. They just said whatever you want to do. I’m sure it is alright or fine, something like that.
Years later I started to hear the rustle of information and whispers in the kitchen and feel that death sick lonely feeling wishing someone was there that I could trust but always knowing that I would not let them know that I could hear or that I knew, that it would be my life. I knew our family was breaking up but I didn’t know what that meant for me.
The only place that I learned about organized crime was from television. I never even went to the movies until I was thirteen and that was maybe once a year. I wasn’t even allowed to watch the news or read the newspaper.
I wasn’t allowed near boys even though that didn’t stop me. I loved a good kiss. I used to sneak all the time. When I would have boyfriends over I had to come in much earlier than my brother or sister and was not allowed to talk or be alone with them. One of my boyfriends thought that was suspicious. He used to try and get me to come live in his home. I can never figure out why he never got killed seeing all of the things he used to try and do for me.
I did find out later that his brother was a cop and that’s when he, Jason, turned on me. I could never imagine that he would. He was the love of my life, cherished me. My first boyfriend, even with all the girlfriends that he had, he still worshipped me and could never forget me. He had in his mind that I was taken away from him in some way apparently because when I made it clear against my wishes that we would never be he snapped. Kind of the same thing my ex-husband Danny did when I left him and he saw I was never coming back. Danny’s uncle was a cop so that’s probably where all that came from. I was always supposed to be watched. I’m sure it must have gotten too hard on everyone and they had to make a decision soon as to what to do with me.
I knew my grandmother didn’t want me out in New York. The thought of me becoming rich and famous was out of the question, apparently because I would talk about what I don’t know because I was never able to make sense out of anything. All I know is I would repeat weird things to people and they would just look at me and say, “Do you know what you are saying?”
And I would say, “What?” because I only knew what I grew up on or around. I knew nothing else. Whatever I shared was the knowledge of my life, my upbringing. If my life was so weird why wasn’t anyone saying anything to me in-depth about it? I would just feel people distance themselves from me often. There was always someone else there for me though to play with or socialize with. It seemed to be the more naïve or unpopular ones that would always end up staying and crying to me about their problems because it seemed I could always make it better.
I never had any problem with that. If I would start to feel lonely I would feel a circus of events and people around me that stayed until I moved on to another grade or year in my life. It just seemed that the wise and weary stayed away, always the nice guys too, it seemed as I got older. Boy was that the bummer.
Everything I learned was from TV. In those days all we had were black and whites. We were so lucky to get one because I was told we had no money. I used to stay up and watch the old movies. That is where I learned about love but my personal love life never seemed to go the same. I loved the little girl with the golden locks who would dance and sing. That was my favorite and the monster with sewn patches on his face and dinosaurs went next in that order. I played with dolls until I was twelve which I tried to hide because that was supposed to be bad. But it was so hard for me, such a break up, because I loved their faces, so beautifully molded each and every one of them so perfect and pink and smelled so new before they started to look old. The smell of their clothes and bottles as they drank out of them were so perfectly admired. Oh God, I could feel that through my whole body when I would see them in the store. I never wanted to leave the aisle at the thought of taking a new one home.
I wanted a baby so bad when I was little. My aunt, the one that said that my father was not my father, said that there was something wrong with that as she looked at me and through me that I was crazy. My mother told her to leave me alone and that the doctor said that was normal. I used to ask my mother all the time to make me a baby sister or brother. When I finally accepted that she would not I would look through the baby catalogs and pick out all the cute babies that I wanted to be mine when I grew up. There were always so many.
My other used to wash baggies and hang them all over the sink area to dry so people would see them when they came over, I guess to see we were poor. And my father would come home with $2,000 stereos and other sorts of contraptions. He never borrowed, only paid cash. He didn’t believe in it.
One thing I did hate was my mother when she would wake up on a Saturday morning. She would bitch to me to start cleaning and it would seem that I was the only one in the house to do it. I would have to start about five minutes after she would wake up, that was around 9:00 or 10:00 a.m. on Saturdays. She had all the jobs marked out for me. Let’s see, scrub the bathroom, “Oh no! Don’t forget to dust the plants in the living room and I will come by and check all the jobs later,” she would say as I watched her vacuum the toaster. She would check every job I did after I did it and if it wasn’t done right I would have to do it again. There were always five or six hours before I could eat anything. I could have cereal when I got up but I had to work all the way through until all the Saturday jobs were done until I could eat another meal. That would be sometimes not until 3:00 p.m. in the afternoon and I would be dizzy and tired and trying not to pass out. But I was not allowed to stop until done. Someone used to come in and tell her to give me a piece of cheese or something on occasions. She would smile and say, “Okay,” even though this voice wasn’t clear and I couldn’t really hear familiarity well enough to make it out. But the feeling of food in my body made sense and was securing.
I hated to clean. That’s probably why I revolt to do it now. This is probably why after Danny I refused to cook or clean for anyone since. I never even cleaned my own apartment except the bathroom and I kept the stove and sink area clean as just what I would use for the day. And of course I was a good bathroom cleaner because I had been doing it since I was eight years old. I never dusted, I would just run my hand across something when I walked by. I never used an iron either. I would rather throw the garment out and say that something was wrong with it. I would just throw things out if they became too dirty and too difficult to clean, appliances, things of that nature. I didn’t believe in frivolous things. Wouldn’t buy knick knacks either so that I wouldn’t have to dust them or so they wouldn’t break. I tried not to save any paper that I didn’t need. I had very few greeting cards that I would hang on to. My mother taught me that. She would always throw things out if there were too many things accumulating from us children from year to year, school made gifts or if I gave her something that she didn’t like for an occasion, she would give them back to me. Or at times she’d tell me she was going to throw a particular gift out anyway if I didn’t take it back because she either didn’t like it or had no use for it. I guess that’s why I never really got attached to material things or supposed emotional attachment pieces after Danny and I broke up. After him, I decided that I would not and just forgot about things that supposedly didn’t mean anything to me and moved on. I wanted to start a new life so bad.
And I only dated men that took me out to eat so that I wouldn’t have to cook for them. I think that was one of the reasons why Danny had a hard time coming home. He didn’t know how to cook either and would always expect me to have supper on the table. I did that fine; it was just what he was eating and that would aggravate him. We had a limited income so I shopped accordingly, always chicken legs of course. I was taught that from my mother, they’re cheap. Can buy a huge bag of them and they always tasted good with a shaking bag and bread crumbs and baked potatoes and carrots. My husband didn’t mind that as long as the potatoes weren’t cold and he had chicken gravy and everything served right to him, whether or not my food was going to get cold did not matter. I think it was the veal cutlet patties that put him over the edge. They were the four-pack for ninety-nine cents.
He just flipped and never came home for supper again. I think he was even planning a divorce at that time, which to me didn’t seem to be a reason to leave someone that you just married and loved. It seemed that I was too much for him. Even though he loved when I would play cards for crackers with him, he would laugh and cry at the same time. It was hard but I wanted him to know that we loved each other and I tried to love him even though we had nothing. He had a piece of land that his parents had given to him but he didn’t want my name on it so it was hard to plan building a home on it because I would be putting my money into it too obviously.
I was hard to deal with at times. I would just get emotional and cry over nothing and not even be able to move at times and I didn’t know why. The emotional feeling would just override me so much at times that I just wanted to find out what it was and get rid of it so bad and move on but I was never able to even look at what was bothering me. Danny would feel bad and go into another room or just go and walk out the door. Which is here that I don’t understand, he did the same thing to me when Janet died. After she died I was falling apart and someone would come in but it didn’t seem as though they were helping me anymore, they were just there. It just seemed that I was functioning then aimless in life or unfeeling of any goal.
Someone wanted me to go out there into the world on my own and seemed to be trying to push me away from Danny at this time and he certainly didn’t seem to be fighting it at all on this. He would get drunk on occasion and come to the bar where I waitressed and drive me home and threaten to crash the truck up with both of us in it. I was terrified. I didn’t know what he was going through. I couldn’t understand. It seemed that everyone was taking control of my husband’s life now and I was just supposed to be out of it. Even Janet, when she was alive, pretended that she cared if we broke up early in our marriage. I could tell. I could see the way she was acting towards me. After Janet died it seemed that she and Danny had something going on with each other, also, some kind of deal on me with Terry. And she knew another man trying to be a cop. I felt so bad because I loved Janet no matter what and I always blamed myself for the guy that died in that cellar of my uncle’s. I blamed myself for Janet being sick and this man must have misconstrued my feelings for something else. I had carried that pain with me for so long and it didn’t seem to show itself until Janet died. She was the only decent thing that I ever knew and loved.
I couldn’t figure it out. Nothing seemed to be going smooth. I did not know what was wrong. I wasn’t that young. I was eighteen at the time. I watched and did everything that my mother did. My father liked that and he didn’t seem to mind what she was doing. I would see things falling apart all over the place when I would cook and my mother and father would “ooh” and ahhh” over it when it came to my sister’s cooking. They thought everything I cooked was awful. The only thing I could make was American Chop suey, but sometimes I would experiment and put chili powder into it for a little zing.
My father got very angry and said, “What is that shit?” When I was little and it would be my turn to cook he would always say that it would be the last time that I would cook. I didn’t care. Ms. Fonser, my Home Ec teacher, felt the same way but it was alright because I was helping with the clean up instead.
I loved school. That was the only place that I got any discipline and upbringing, good discipline and upbringing and a lot of praise and love. I only had a few bad run-ins, one was with a teacher. It was with the art teacher who pulled me into the window by my hair and bumped my nose on the window frame. I still have a bump there today. She freaked, but I was a brat hanging my head out trying to catch a jump rope from a classmate outside two floors down.
And then there was the time I almost go in a fight with a boy at school trying to stick up for a friend. But he punched me in the mouth instead and chipped my tooth so that ended that one. And there was one boy who chased me with a green frog at recess. I used to get so sick from him but he died in a boat some years later. And there was another guy who used to give my sister a hard time and they found him dead and shot in the back woods of his house. My mother told me it was because of me but I knew it was because of my sister, if anyone. My mother told me to shut my mouth. I knew he always gave my sister a hard time. She used to complain about him all of the time, I barely knew him. I was always told to shut my mouth when it came to my sister. My sister can drug me and get drunk and it didn’t matter if anyone knew that I was drunk or on drugs as a result of her. But it was turning out to be like a mortal sin if I divulged anything on my sister, even if it had to do with me.
And then of course there was the Senator’s daughter. I had out voted her on every beauty contest in our class that year and she attacked me in the cafeteria. Her father and mother came after me with the hooked up stuff and vowed to make my life a failure after that.
I only knew one guy who had the gall to be so sweet and nice to me and try and really get to me by picking my brain and showing me he really cared. He ended up shot in his apartment. He seemed to be forced into writing a suicide letter. His friends that were my friends were later turned against me. He had such a crush on me growing up. But he had this sweet intensive sincerity that you never find and always wanted to be my knight.
He would tell everyone that he liked me so much and wanted to date me. “Really like me,” he used to say and, “pass it on.” I used to think about it as I did with every offer and held that thought for a moment to see if I were passing up something. If I didn’t feel anything then I would know that something wasn’t there. I think everyone knew how he felt. After he died they just tried not to say that he ever liked me. Kind of like the same when Danny had an affair with the mafia girl that was friends with my sister-in-law and they both tried to say that he never did. Was I supposed to be the one in danger now? They were the ones that were in the mafia or so Danny had said. That’s when I started to wonder.
My father called me one day when I was away and told me that this guy who wanted to be my knight was dead. I could feel someone that sounded like my father coming through the phone saying that this guy had to go. He wanted to see my reaction to this and I started to go a little, then from somewhere a feeling that it was my time too.
I loved movies, they would take me away. There was only one other thing that took me away more and that was music. When my sister got older my father set the cellar up so that she could listen to her 45’s and read her books in peace. I’m surprised that I didn’t throw a fit because it wasn’t set up for me too. She was only five years older. My protection always made me not argue because they were afraid that my father would hurt me. She loved her 45’s and I had a couple from her on birthdays, which would always be picked out by her. I was allowed to go downstairs sometimes and listen to music with her. I loved it. I felt as though I were walking into a forbidden palace with her. She had so many large albums that I never knew of. At thirteen, I saw one glance of an older, famous, long-haired rock and roll star and decided that I wanted to go out with him. I had always gotten the cutest guy in class that I wanted. I had always been looking for that father figure.
She looked at me as though I was crazy and said, “Yeah, right.” And then looked again and said, “You are serious!” I didn’t understand. That’s all I needed to see. He made me feel the way that I was supposed to. What was wrong? “He’s too old for you,” she said, “for one thing.” I didn’t understand that. I had always escaped the dirty no-no’s. I figured that I was so cute that there was never a problem. No one would ever look at me and touch me the way that they weren’t supposed to, that was out of the question in my family. That was like death to my father. Looking at me was always enough though. She hadn’t had sex either so it was never discussed. She said, “Well I’m not taking you to see him.” That’s when the disappointment set in and I almost cried. She told me to look at one of the junior magazines instead and like one of the younger pop stars. “More your age,” she said. And I was cornered into feeling the way she recommended. It was always like that with her, about everything. But it was the long hair and the forbidden place that I wanted that I was never supposed to have. I never said anything about it again.
When she came back from seeing him in concert she threw through me the Ha! Ha! Ha! And said, “Ooh, he was real good, too!” And I can still feel the pain coming from her. She would throw things into my body a lot as she got older and would be hooked up. I was never allowed to have any of that. It seemed that my brother and I were the only ones who didn’t use it. My brother started to have muscles spasms after my parents divorced and it seemed serious and I had always been sick at the doctors.
My brother would walk around and his face would twitch out of nowhere constantly. I did not know what had happened to him but I knew that we were the only ones that weren’t using it in our family. My brother ended up having to smoke pot unfortunately to relieve the spasms, a lot of it. He had so much that he had to sell it. Maybe that’s why he didn’t work often.
My brother’s new girlfriend let me know she knew I told the cops of this after I was drugged by the police and had given all the information that I did to them. She ended up turning against me too as everyone else did that found out what I told them. Can’t trust a cop. You have to be careful what you give them. They did drug me at the onset so what I had said had no bearing anyway, after all. But they passed around what I gave them as much as they could to stir up as much as they could, and boy did it work. They had so much pertinent information it would stir up and get a lot of people angry in the process.
My sister was always nasty to me. If I would see she would always say I couldn’t. If I wanted to be voted one of the prettiest girls when I grew up she would say one of my friends were prettier and more worthy. And if I would try and reciprocate in a nice way even though I didn’t agree with what I was saying to her to be nice, she would cry.
I could always do thing better than her. My father despised me for it. I could get on a pair of ice skates or roller skates and take off and she would still be pushing a broom to stay standing while crying as she was swaying back and forth. My father would say, “Do you see anything wrong?”
And I would say, “No,” as I glided by her on my skates. “She has the broom to hold on to.” I could walk into a room and have a million different conversations with a million different strangers and still shine. All I remember is her always having a soggy crying look on her face when we would go out together. And when I was old enough, about fourteen, or at least really starting to blossom, the guys were everywhere around me and even her dates would end up asking me out. My mother said that I was too young and I would get zapped if I would flirt too much with them. My sister was the oldest and I would have to learn and understand that there was a certain amount of respect that was expected of me towards her and she was to feel this. I never could feel this completely until after I had surgery when I was older which left me brain damaged.
She would come with me to the city to pretend that she was being supportive of my career and then the only manager that ever really took me seriously professionally ended up missing. I had to really think about what happened to him seeing as my sister came with me to work with him once. And I never heard from his office or him again and never saw the tape of our newscast reels that we were working on. It was the last time that I ever heard anything of his whereabouts except that he was afraid to come back. He was the only man who every really did anything with me or for me professionally. He pushed me to go to an acting contest one night and I won second place. I was terrified and had no idea what I was doing. But it was good for me then because I learned and someone knew that.
Download this book for your ebook reader.
(Pages 1-23 show above.)