So I was trying harder on the papers Miss Samples handed out. Still pretending to read. And getting some of my marbles back out of her bottom drawer every day.
And I also need to say divorce was spreading like the flu up and down Bronco Road. And my mom and day were not divorced yet but they were getting there.
In fact on this particular occassion my dad and older sister weren’t even there. My dad’s mother was dying of cancer so he and my sister took off to Montana to see her. And if they hadn’t done that and were home what happened next wouldn’t have happened.
I don’t know what job mom had by then. She could always get one because she wasn’t just a secretary she was also really good at taking shorthand dictation which was a skill that was in high demand in Denver back in those days.
But I do know whatever job it was she didn’t have to leave for work until just about time for me to walk to school and mom drop my little brother off at the babysitter’s.
But just before we were going to head out the door that morning the phone rang. And when mom hung up she said it was the school calling. And they needed to talk to her after school, and she would have to take time off of work to go meet with them.
Mom wanted to know if I was in trouble at school and I told her not that I could think of and she took that for an answer.
I had school down pat by then. I went to school in the morning and played marbles or got in a fight before the bell rang. I snuck around at lunch time and stole lunch money and/or toys. And then went out to recess and played marbles or got in a fight, sometimes both. I did the same thing at afternoon recess.
Then after school I walked home picking up any toys that caught my fancy. The toys would be just laying around in yards. And that had become kind of an open air department store for me. Things were going great as far as I was concerned.
And it was the same thing that day. I went to school with my regular routine and walking home that day passed the house of a kid I knew. There was a brand new baseball bat laying in his front yard and I picked it up.
Which was a little different. I usually didn’t know the people I stole things from. But he wasn’t using it and it was just laying there.
But I had not been home long at all when mom came in kind of crying and yelling me at the same time. She poured herself a drink and it looked like a stout one.
Then mom started telling me she had just come from the meeting at school and they told her I was doing terrible. They said the most important thing was all I did was sort of daydream and couldn’t read even read at a beginning level.
The school told my mom I always seemed to be getting in fights almost every day. And they had not actually caught me yet but suspected I was stealing things at school. And they also had complaints about some little kid that would walk kind of the route I would take home from school stealing things out of yards.
And so I confessed. Yes, I couldn’t read yet but was sure I would get around to it. And as far as the fighting all the other kids started it and all I did was defend myself.
But as far as stealing they must have me mixed up with someone else because mom had always told us kids never EVER steal anything. And I actually launched into about a five minute dissertation on how bad stealing was and why I would never do it.
And of course she fell for it because it wasn’t just that I was good at lying. And I was. It was also always easier because my mom wanted to believe me. She didn’t want to believe there was anything wrong. And if she believed my lie she didn’t have to deal with anything. I considered that kind of a deal we had.
Mom poured another drink and I went out to play with my new bat. Unsing it to try and knock rocks over the fence onto the Valley Highway that ran below our backyard.
Which was a huge error in judgment on my part because mom got to looking at me out in the back yard. And then thought about it and knew damn good and well she had never bought me a baseball bat.
In fact nobody else was supposed to give me a bat either ever since the unfortunate incident when I took a little wooden bat on my first field trip. And a kid ended up having to get stitches in his head.
And what was so unfair about that was it was my bat but I wasn’t even the one who hit the kid with it. But the rule from then on was no bats.
I had my back to her when mom came storming out of the house and I can still feel her fingernails digging into my neck and shoulder. I thought she was going to break my damn neck the way she was jerking me around dragging me back into the house.
Mom was so mad she just threw her drink on the floor and shattered the glass. While she was screaming at me to tell her where I had stolen that bat.
Mom demanded to know where I got that bat. I tired telling her I didn’t know but I was sure I didn’t steal it if that’s what she was thinking. And mom slapped me.
Mom would demand to know where I stole the bat. I would tell another lie. And she would slap me again. And then demand again I tell her the truth.
My little brother was also home by then and he was screaming and crying worse than I was. And I was the one getting slapped.
My little brother just kept screaming; “TELL HER, TELL HER!!!” And so mostly just to shut him up I finally said “Jimmy,”
And that upset mom even more because Jimmy was the one kid that would come to my birthday party which was right after Christmas and not give me a broken Christmas toy for a present.
Mom knew his parents and appreciated that. Which made it even more painful and embarrassing to her for me to steal something from Jimmy.
Then mom said she was going to make me take that bat back and knock on the door and go in their house. She demanded I tell both Jimmy and his parents I had stolen his baseball bat. And say I was sorry.
But she had to have another drink first because I had embarrassed her so bad and made her spill her drink. Proving mom was actually a worse liar than I was. Because she didn’t spill her drink. She smashed in on the floor and the ice cubes had not all melted yet. Which made it hard to tell the difference between ice cubes and the broken glass.
This time though I guess because she was in a hurry she just poured straight whiskey in a glass and drank it down it two gulps.
Then mom threw me and my little brother in the car and drove straight to Jimmy’s house. Well not straight actually. She was all over the road and going up and down wrong streets. I finally had to show her where Jimmy’s house was.
Once mom had pulled up in front of Jimmy’s house she made me get out of the car with the baseball bat. She gave me strict instructions she would not go with me. But ordered me to knock on the door, go inside the house, confess I had stolen Jimmy’s bat, and say I was sorry.
I at least did walk up and ring the doorbell. But by that time I was crying harder than when mom was slapping me. And when Jimmy came to the door I just blurted out between sobs that I had stolen his bat and I was sorry.
All I could do is barely stammer. And Jimmy was so upset with that he told me he didn’t want the baseball bat anyway and tried to give it back to me.
I knew that was not going to go over and made Jimmy take the bat. While in the meantime Mom was in the car busy crying and sobbing so she didn’t even notice I didn’t do what told me to do. I got back in the car and mom drove us home with just a couple close calls of hitting parked cars.
But listen don’t ever do that to your children if you think they might have to depend on a life of crime, especially larceny, later in life. Because that worked and I could not steal worth a shit after that and couldn’t for the rest of my life. That was the last time I stole anything.
By the time we got home mom had calmed down a little bit and said that was harder on her than it was on me. Which I sincerely doubted but it was her story and she could tell it anyway she wanted.
I was not going to argue about it and set her off again. Then she made dinner which was hotdogs again for the third night. With only water to drink. Then she tried to talk to me about school and made me promise to learn to read.
And I did promise but that was another big lie. I had tried. And no matter how hard I tried there were only a few words I could recognize and everything else on the page of a book was nothing but a jumbled mess that made no sense at all to me.
So I still pretended to read for Miss Samples and maybe get a smile. And I admit I was getting better at it because all the books were pretty much “Dick and Jane” and they all had pictures and I could look at the pictures and recite what I thought the words might say. And I was pretty damn good at it if I do say so myself. And was even starting to recognize a few words
But there is a world of difference from being able to recognize some words and reading the words. Because for me the words I could recognize just kind of hung in midair in a sea of black and white I didn’t recognize and seemed to move around on me.
After dinner mom poured another drink and said she needed to calm down some more and couldn’t stand the sound of the TV. So she sent my little brother and I to our room and tossed a couple books at me telling me to practice reading to my little brother.
Yeah right. The books were actually my sister’s with hardly any pictures. There was no way I could even pretend to read them. So my little brother just jumped on his bed and started sucking his thumb with his favorite blanket. While I busied myself counting and looking at the marbles I had won that day.
And it was only a few minutes later when mom said she had calmed down and I had left my coat on the floor. But she would be would be nice and hang it up in the closet for me.
And I knew things were just about to go from bad to worse. Because I didn’t hang my coat in the closet anymore. I either left it on the floor or hung it on the door knob.
Because there was no room in my closet. My closet was filled floor to top shelf with all the other toys I had stolen. It was so packed with toys I was not sure I could have even gotten the baseball bat in there.
And the strange thing was I had that closet packed with toys that I never even played with. Most of them not even once. I just grabbed them, brought them home, and stuffed them in there.
Obviously didn’t have much of a conscience. But what little I did have must have been guilty because I really didn’t want to even look at all the toys I had stolen.
Then mom opened that closet door and all the toys came spilling out on the floor. Which was just how packed it was. She could not believe it. And said so.
There was no doubt I had stolen all those toys because she sure never bought them for me. But what she couldn’t believe was the sheer volume. Which she erroneously estimated at hundreds when in reality it could have only been a hundred or so.
Mom would grab a toy and was screaming: “WHERE DID YOU STEAL THIS ONE FROM? YOU ARE GOING TO TAKE IT BACK AND TELL THEM YOU STOLE IT!!!”
And then she would throw the toy at me. And I just kept trying to dodge them but didn’t say a word because that time if I told her I didn’t know it would have been the truth. I had no idea where I had stolen them from.
In fact I didn’t even recognize some of them when they flew past and thought some of them were really neat and I wished I had taken the time to play with them before I got caught.
Mt next thought, however was I wished I had not stolen that Tonka pickup truck. Because Tonka toys were made of all metal.
Mom grabbed that Tonka truck and she had a pretty good arm on her. I wasn’t able to dodge the truck and it hit me right in the shoulder. And that was enough to make me scream out in pain.
That must have scared my little brother because he came scurrying out from under his bed where he had been hiding.
He ran to my sister’s room first but apparently could still hear the screaming and crying. So next he ran to the living room to try hide behind the couch to get away from it.
I was the older brother and never took any cues from my little brother. But I also remember I still had a John Deere toy tractor with a hay wagon in my closet somewhere. And ironically enough I had not even stolen it. I had traded for it fair and square.
But I was pretty sure mom was not in the mood to apricate technicalities like that. And since the tractor and hay wagon were also made of metal I thought my little brother’s hiding under the bed trick looked like a pretty good idea.
So I jumped off the bed and tried to hide under it for protection. Which just enraged mom even more if that were possible.
She ran to the bed and drug me out and she was just damned lucky I didn’t come out from under the bed with a knife in my had to fend her off.
Because I had taken to weaving butter knives into the springs of my bed for protection just in case the gang members came back.
Which actually turned out to be six of one and half a dozen of the other because I also thought there were monsters under my bed. And I was afraid to stick my hand under my bed at night. But I figured I could if those gang member guys came back. But I didn’t grab a knife and when mom got me out from under the bed she started hitting me.
And then threw me back on the bed screaming at me, “All your whole God damned life all you have ever done is go out of your way to try and make me look like a bad mother.”
Which I didn’t accept because I didn’t think it was much out of my way. I figured she had always done a pretty good job of making herself look like a bad mother all by herself if I compared her to other mothers I knew.
Mom kept jerking me around and hitting me and reciting all the terrible things I had ever done for a while. But her pitching arm was pretty much exhausted and she was missing a lot with her slaps.
She also kept trying to pull my hair which I thought was funny and poetic justice. Because she and dad had started just giving my little brother and I buzz cuts. I hated having a buzz cut. But admit it was coming in pretty handy that night because there was no hair for mom to pull.
Until finally mom just fell over on the floor and started kicking and hitting it, thrashing around, and pulling her own hair. By then she was pretty much screaming out every bad thing that had ever happened to her. And how none of it was her fault.
In a way that seemed kind of fair to me. She had beaten the crap out of me and deserved to beat the crap out of herself. And I just crawled up on the corner of my bed pushing against the corner of the wall hoping it would break out and I could run away.
I don’t know how long she did that but when she sort of stopped screaming and crying mom literally crawled out of my room and over all the toys on her hands and knees. She was half way down the hall before she could finally stand up again.
But when mom did get back on her feet she wen straight to the kitchen for another drink.
That made my little brother jump out from behind the couch and come running to our room. But he took one look at the mess and decided our sister’s room was a safer bet and ran in there to hide.
Mom had another couple pretty good belts and then came marching down the hall to the bedroom door. She then announced since I couldn’t take all those toys back I still could not have them. She was going to burn every God damned one of them and I was going to help her because it was all my fault.
Mom grabbed a toy or two and made me grab some. We went out the back door to the “incinerator.” Which if you can believe it was something in every back yard in Western Hills. It was a thing that looked like a cement chimney that was supposed to do away with having garbage cans or garbage trucks. We were just supposed to burn everything.
Everybody on Bronco Road burned their trash in those days. And mom figured we could just “incarnate” about 100 toys.
And in a way that turned out to be kind of funny because mom didn’t have any matches. So I had to give her mine even though matches was another thing I was forbidden to have. But I got some matches out of my hiding place and mom didn’t seem to even notice.
Then I even had to get a newspaper for her to light the fire with because just toys don’t light worth a damn. She did get the fire going and started stuffing toys in the top of the incinerator but then there was a change of plans.
Mom was going to get another drink and watch the fire and I was going to bring every one of those God damned toys out to the incinerator myself. Because it was all my fault.
I actually thought that was a bad lesson. I thought if that was supposed to be more punishment it wasn’t working. Because strangely by then all I wanted to do was get rid of all those toys and never have to look at one of them again.
And burning them to get rid of those toys seemed like a really good idea. I set to the task kind of like it was one of the chores at the ranch.
I was carrying those toys out like I was packing firewood. And even as many of them as there was it didn’t seem to take long. And when I told mom that was all of them she said I better not be lying to her because she was going to check.
I was actually telling the truth that time and told her to go check. Which of course she didn’t do.
But we clearly had another problem. At the rate we were going trying to stuff all those toys into the incinerator basically one at a time it would take us all night to burn them all.
So I asked mom about just piling the toys around the incinerator and we could burn the rest of them all at once. Mom thought that was just a great idea. And she decided to mix another drink while I piled all the toys up around the incinerator.
But before mom could even get back with her drink another problem jumped up. I discovered a pile of toys was really hard to light and I was running low on matches.
I decided to take my life in my hands and run and get one more thing I had stolen. A can of my dad’s lighter fluid. He was a pipe smoker and needed lighter fluid for his lighters. And when I got my chance I swiped part of a can of it.
Mom and dad both promised to whip me until I couldn’t stand up if they ever caught me playing with matches again. So as an extra precaution I kept my matches and lighter fluid hidden in my sister’s room. Because neither of them would ever suspect my sister of anything. And my sister never looked in the very far corner under her bed.
But this was a very risky mission. If mom caught me with the lighter fluid it would be worse than just catching me with matches. And she would also know I stole it. As well as know I had also been lying about not playing with matches anymore.
Any or all of that might set mom off again and send her into another rage. But I didn’t seem to have any choice because there was no other way to set all the rest of the toys on fire.
I was pondering that and the possible consequences when I saw mom walk out of the kitchen, set her drink down, and start walking down the hall. I figured she was headed to the bathroom which was the break I needed.
My sister’s room was actually a converted utility room with the washer and dryer still in it. But there was enough room for a bed and at least a little space for her. But best of all it had its own back door.
I saw my opportunity and took it. Running as fast as I could to the back door, I flopped on my belly and Army crawled under my sister’s bed. And grabbed my stashed can of lighter fluid.
Mom was standing in the living room by then sipping her drink but not watching me. So I squirted lighter fluid all over the pile of toys.
And put a match to it. And then as almost an afterthought I just emptied the rest of can of lighter fluid and threw the empty can on the fire as well to get rid of the evidence. What could go wrong?
Well I had a fire going then that was big enough to get mom’s attention and she came out to check on it. And I guess just assumed toys make a really big fire.
So we were just standing there watching the fire and I have to admit I really felt better watching those toys burn. And some toys burn really pretty.
And I was glad to be rid of them. Which is when the empty can of lighter fluid blew up like a small bomb. But mom just assumed that must have been one of the toys
Mom and I watched the pile until the fire burned down. Actually leaving a really big mess around the incinerator and a smoldering fire hazard. But mom thought that was good enough. And we went back in the house.
Then mom told me and my little brother to just go to bed because it was long past our usual bedtime. And that was fine with us because we wanted to get a little distance between her and us.
But that didn’t last too long either. I don’t think either of us was even asleep yet when mom came in the bedroom and turned on the light. And told us to come sit with her on the bed.
We did and she was crying again but this time she put her arms around both of us kind of hugging us. And she was saying how terribly sorry she was for losing her temper like that.
Mom said she knew she shouldn’t have acted that way and also knew she was a bad mother. And of course my bother and I lied and told her she wasn’t just to make her feel better.t.
Mom also said she wouldn’t have done that but life was just so God damned hard for her and she had to do everything herself and it just wasn’t fair.
Then she said; “Listen boys I am going to stop drinking and straighten up and fly right. And tomorrow when I get home from work I am taking both of you to the grocery store and get the things you like and maybe even buy each of you a toy so you don’t have to steal them.”
Which didn’t really make any sense because we actually had lots of toys to play with. And I had no idea why I was stealing more in the first place.
Mom also said she was going to start cleaning house again and doing laundry again and things were going to get better; “You’ll see.”
She also asked us to forgive her which we honestly did, and told us to go to sleep. Mom said goodnight and shut off the light. That made us both feel better and we could even go to sleep.
Now of course things did not work out like mom said. They never did. But she did try to quit drinking for a while. And we did get to go to the grocery store the next day. And really loaded up on the things we liked.
