Checkout Time The Little Men My mother, incapable of discerning between a good witch, a bad witch, or a sandwich through her plethora of neuroses and psychoses, sized Joe up instantly. Directly after she met him, she prophesied to me on the telephone, “If you marry him, you will wake up one morning to find a big, fat, fascist pig lying beside you”. Naturally, her warning went unheeded; after all, she had ended up married to a communist/bigamist (but that is another story). Danny was more handsome than his older brother was. He was also by far more intelligent and ambitious. Joe, taller with wavy blonde hair, blue eyes, and thick lips, was already showing a gut at twenty-five. Danny was dark, and lean. Danny’s eyes were almost black, his features typically Italian. He was a little hunk. Joe had the look of the Irish about him and the demeanor to match. By the time I met Joe, Danny was already engaged to marry Maggie. Danny was still serving in the Navy when they planned their August of 1971 wedding. Joe courted me for a brief 6 months and we decided to be married in September that same year. I wanted Joe to move in with me first for a trial run. I was living in a cute little studio apartment at 4 Park Avenue. We both worked in Manhattan, so it would have been convenient and given us an opportunity to see how our relationship would fare on a seven-day-a-week basis. “We cannot do that!” Joe said, looking aghast at the suggestion. “Why do you look so shocked”, I asked. “We are sleeping together so what is the difference”, I wondered aloud. “The difference is that my mother will think you are a whore”, was his response. “Then I will not be able to marry you”, Joe continued. I must have been blind and deaf. There and then, I should have ended it. Who cared what his mother thought? Obviously, Joe did to such an extent that he would forego the marriage based on her opinion of me. What power he gave her. Why did I not see how that would eventually effect me? On several occasions during our engagement, Joe showed me his dark side and quick temper. To my shame, I chose to ignore each incident, setting it aside as singular rather than indicative of a pattern. I was young, naïve, and desperate. Twenty years later I would use that word to describe my own daughter and to caution her. How history does repeat itself! My marriage to Joe of twelve unbearable years yielded two children, Brett, and Alexis. Bringing children into that dysfunctional house was the greatest sin I ever committed. We were all Joe’s victims one way or another. Joe was physically abusive to Brett as well as me. Alexis escaped perhaps because she was too young or because he pitied her. Joe was indiscriminately verbally abusive to all three of us. Brett, now twenty-three observed that, “Back then I thought of you as part of an ‘us’ team against Joe”. He added, “I understand now that we were all victims in that house”. How unsafe and frightened they must have felt, with Joe the abuser always ready to strike, and Mom the victim, unable to save even herself! At her premature birth, Alexis weighed two-lbs. two-oz. She was a textbook of every complication in premature births. Her lungs collapsed several times due to under-development. Ali’s heart required surgery to close a major duct. In order to perform the surgery, the doctors deemed in necessary to get weight on her quickly. Several botched cut-downs later, they managed to insert a catheter in her right groin. This was to carry a highly concentrated protein into her bloodstream. Less than twenty-four hours later, gangrene began to set in on Ali’s foot. It rapidly spread to her entire leg; I was in a state of panic and horror! Desperate, I pulled off the tape that was binding her leg to a tiny board. Within hours, the natural color began to return to Ali’s leg and foot. Sadly, it was too late for her toes. One by one they blackened and dropped off. Joe, and his mother Edna, may she rest in pieces, were mortified. Once at a family picnic thrown by Edna’s office, a group of children was playing together. They all took off their shoes and socks. Naturally, Ali followed suit. Edna shrieked at her to bring her shoes and socks over and put them back on. Before she could open her mouth, I was halfway across the table ready to attack her. Maggie physically held me off. I pulled Ali over and took the socks and shoes. “Just go and play sweetie”, I told her. Then I turned back to Edna and warned her, “If you ever make my daughter feel ashamed, you will never get near either of my children again”. Joe caught in the middle had little to say. By all definitions a mama’s boy, Joe feared confrontation with Edna. He trembled under her wrath and disapproval, a terror with which I could never relate. Perhaps it was fear born of guilt. Joe and Danny had left Edna when they were twelve and nine respectively. They had gone to live with Joe, Sr. in California. Later they all moved to Florida, but ultimately Joe and Danny came back to Edna. They could not tolerate Joe Sr.’s trollop second wife any longer. Edna was typically Sicilian. Edna never forgot or fully forgave anything: certainly not when it involved her ex-husband. Joe Sr. had left Edna for that other woman and made no efforts to conceal his assignations. When her boys left her to be with their father, she was devastated and angry. She pulled out the guilt to lord over her sons whenever convenient. In Bondage My so-called father wrote on my birthday card that I was born in the spring … a time of renewal and re-birth. As I mentally vomited over his usual rhetoric, I thought about all the things that were bursting to life. A cacophony of blooming, budding, hatching, and greening surrounded me. I felt totally decayed! Maybe death, I mused, is the only peace. As I put up a fresh roll of paper towels, I noticed Joe watching me. I could read his thoughts, “Well, she actually remembered, maybe that is a good sign”. I asked myself, “Which one of us is crazy?” I also had a backup bottle of ketchup in the cabinet and wondered if I would get an at-a-girl for that as well. Happy birthday Danny! Thankfully, others around me are getting older too. I felt so tired that day and so bored. Another shitty week to be followed by yet another dull weekend. I would have given anything to escape but there was no money to spend on such frivolities. Thank goodness, Joe had his diversion. He and Danny co-owned an old wood boat that barely ran. They bought little boat wheels to hang on the wall with the inscription “A boat is a hole in the water into which one pours money”. Joe could find money for the boat or anything for himself, but not for us. Joe was a selfish prick! Joe never accepted responsibility for his actions. When consequences came, he attributed them to “Bad luck”, rather than examining his actions or lack thereof. Joe made his own rules, and when life caught up with him, he declared himself a victim. He was also a master at blame shifting. If late to work, it was clearly my fault for not hoisting him out of bed on time. Joe had a sleep disorder. In the morning, he became a bigger monster than usual. He lashed out physically at anyone disturbing his slumber. Even his mother, when he still lived at home, had refused to continue trying. Joe lost several jobs because of chronic lateness. He garnered several high level lucrative positions, and then blew them. He had little regard for policy and procedure. If he deemed certain paperwork “Ridiculous”, he would shunt it aside until called on the carpet. Then, rather than acting contrite, he would try to convince upper management that the system was not smart. Naturally, their response was not to change SOP, rather to change sales managers. Each weekend was a clone of the prior. Maggie and Danny arrived on Friday nights, we ate pizza or pasta, and then my children became second class citizens in their own home. It was years until I got up the nerve to stop that. After dinner, there was one dessert for the kids, just some cookies and milk. The “good” desserts were saved for the adults. To my shame, I recall sneaking slices of cake into Ali and Brett’s rooms, cautioning them to hide the empty plates under their beds until morning. Saturday and Sunday mornings, my children were prisoners in their rooms. They dared not go to the den to watch TV or play for fear of waking their aunt and uncle. It was not until 1983, the last year of my marriage that I began to advocate for my children. “This is their home” I finally proclaimed, “and you are guests. I will no longer force them to tiptoe around you. You will have to learn to take the back seat.” I remember feeling powerful: the end was in sight! My final moment of glory was scrawling a note on a paper napkin, letting Joe know that I had filed for divorce. I wished I could have been there to see his expression as he read it. I never woke him that morning. The children and I hastened out of the house for the day, leaving him snoring away. It was only a few days before he received the papers. He threw a bible at me, called me a whore, and threatened me, but it was too late. I had taken a stand! I would be a victim no longer!
Copyright © 1999 Louise Friedman |