The research required us to watch all of the “Special Features” on the Special Edition DVD, which also gave me some time to just kick back and relax. Then the writing of the paper started, directly on the computer as we wrote it, editing it in the process. It took us about two hours to get it done and it was extremely late when we finished. “Thanks, Dad, I love you,” Michael said, as he proudly walked into his bedroom with his paper in his hands. Disaster had been avoided once more, and life was back on track. The sun would rise tomorrow and things would go on. Well, when you’re a kid and you have a paper due the next morning that you haven’t even started, it does seem like Armageddon. And if anyone is going to judge me for helping him write it, then let it be God, because those who would point fingers obviously have never had school-aged children.
I turned out all of the lights and I headed to bed. Just before I was about to close my eyes, I remembered the incident in the shower that morning; now I was awake to face what remained of the night alert and alone.
[contents]
Chapter 18
Flashback, 1985
It was Christmas Eve, 1985. Cafe Balaban’s in the Central West End of St. Louis. I was there with a friend and my current girlfriend at the time. This one I thought I loved, boy—did I think I was in love with her. My first true love. Your first love is always something that you remember, and for some, the one you wish you could forget. Her name was Eve. To me she was a goddess, with jet black hair that she kept cropped short. She was a model from Chicago who looked like she stepped off a Vargas print. Eve, the eternal woman. Eve, dressed in black, with a black, gold-tipped cigarette hanging from her mouth. Her eyes looking over the top of her very expensive Wayfarer sunglasses; everything had to be in place. Everything always matched, and I hate to admit it now, but even I matched. I was no more or less than an accessory. I was just as much an accessory to Eve as she was the trophy on my arm. We made a fucking perfect pair of shallow individuals.
“Excuse me,” I said, standing up to head to the restroom.
“Where are you going?” Eve snapped at me, with a look of disdain on her face.
“I was excusing myself to the fucking restroom, without actually saying something unpleasant, if that is okay with you. But now that you have forced me to say it, I might as well go ahead and say I am going to take a piss.” This caused Eve’s friend Alexis, who was with us, to giggle. Eve shot her an instant glare and she immediately quieted down.
“Well, why not just say so to begin with? You don’t have to make a fucking scene.” It was a no-win situation. I knew if I had gone the other way, she would have been mortified as well. An accessory is obviously not supposed to have bodily functions, at least ones that are not fun and for pleasure.
I stumbled my way to the bathroom, a little blurry from the Tanqueray I had already consumed. Now Balaban’s was one of those classy eighties sort of places that you went to when you wanted to be seen. The food was overpriced and so were the drinks. Eve would not have it any other way. She was a snob when it came to where we went. She was not the type of girl you would find in a Golden Corral on a Saturday night. I stumbled into the bathroom and stood there looking in the mirror. I was dressed in an oversized, black tuxedo jacket from the forties, the coolest baggy pants, and wingtip shoes. I had a fresh haircut, with just enough spike to it. I looked like a million fucking bucks, but I felt like complete hell. I was in complete hell. Was this where life was headed for me, I wondered, as I examined myself in the mirror. I had to make sure I was neat and everything was in place. I didn’t really have to take a piss. I just needed to take a moment to get away from Eve’s endless, narcissistic chatter. “Here Comes Santa Claus,” was quietly playing in the background as I continued to look into the mirror. It was Christmas Eve and I should have been home with my family. What in the hell was I doing here? I was miserable.
The door to the bathroom swung open, and in walked a Santa Claus who stood beside me in the next mirror. Just the sight of him reminded me that it was Christmas, and there was a brief hope that everything was going to work out. Just the sight of him made me want to be home with my mom and my dad and my family. It was Christmas in the city and anything could happen, I told myself. I knew I was asking for a miracle, but miracles usually don’t come for shallow people.
“Merry Christmas, Santa,” I said, looking at the jolly old elf standing next to me.
“Merry Christmas to you, too. Hey, you look like you could use a little gift from old Santa,” he said, smiling.
“I don’t think much could cheer me up right now, Santa. Woman troubles, you know?” I said to him, smiling because of his gesture.
“I bet I have something to put you right back into the Christmas spirit,” he said with a chuckle, putting his hand into a pocket of his velvety-red suit. Santa took a mirror and a razor out of that pocket, and began cutting and making lines of coke on the mirror.
“Hey, kid, want to snort a few lines of coke with ole Santa? A little Christmas toot?” Santa asked, laughing beneath his beard. I was shocked. I looked at him with a frown on my face and headed for the door. It was too much to take. “Merry fucking Christmas to you, too,” I heard Santa say as the door shut behind me.
I tried to compose myself, but I couldn’t. I needed to get out. I needed to get out of there. I had stepped into Christmas hell and it was time to climb my way out of the hole. I went to the table and grabbed my coat. I needed some air. I needed to go. I needed to get some place where people weren’t fake––somewhere without a coke-snorting Santa Claus and gold-tipped smokes. I needed to get somewhere that was real. I needed to go home.
“Where do you think you are going?” Eve asked, shocked.
“Anywhere but here,” I said as I went out the door, putting my coat on to face the cold. I filled my lungs with the cold night air. It felt good.
“Will you wait one fucking minute!” It was Eve, her voice coming from behind me.
We were standing there at an intersection on Euclid Avenue, and we were about to have it out. “What is your problem, Steven?” she demanded.
“What is my problem, Eve? I don’t know who I fucking am anymore. I don’t dress like me. I don’t talk like me. I don’t walk like me. Hell, Eve, I don’t even fuck like me anymore. I don’t know who I am. I am this man that you have invented and I’ve got to tell you, I cannot stand myself when I look in the mirror anymore. It is Christmas Eve and we should be with our families, home where people don’t care what we look like and what we do, but where are we? We are where you think we should be seen. My God, I just had Santa Claus—Santa-fucking-Claus—ask me if I would snort a few lines of coke with him.” I tried to calm myself down, but I took one look at her face and I knew where this was headed and what I must do. “Eve, I am at rock bottom and I don’t think I’m going to make it back in one piece. I love you, I do, but for the life of me I cannot stand you. And I don’t think you even know me.”
I thought she was going to try to rip my head off of my shoulders by the way she was looking at me. Well, there it was. It was the final straw. That was all that needed to be said. It looked like I would be spending Christmas with my family after all. Eve could not stand the thought of rejection, and what I had just said to her I knew she would consider a rejection, and it was. I loved her, but I needed her out of my life. I needed her to go away.
She walked away from me, leaving me standing alone in that intersection, under a pair of silver bells. It had to look like a scene out of a modern version of It’s a Wonderful Life. When I should have been heartbroken and destroyed, I was happy. Santa walked out of the restaurant and looked over at me and waved. I waved back and then I headed to my car, leaving Eve behind. I could hear “O Holy Night” in the distance. It was over, and I was going home. That was when I learned how important family is during the holidays and at all times. Home is where the heart is and I needed my heart to be home.
Thanks
giving 2006
It was a few days before Thanksgiving and things were going well, which was surprisingly nice, considering my track record with past holidays. I had taken a job as a security guard in a local shopping mall, leaving my other job behind. I needed a change of pace, something new. The job required long hours due to the upcoming holiday. It was actually kind of refreshing because I would walk the whole length of the mall, over and over again. It was a mile all the way around, so I knew I was getting some great exercise. But I was tired. It was a daily grind and they would keep track of you electronically, because you were required to “wand in” at different check points. There were times throughout my shift that were dull and boring, and other moments of pure adrenaline.
I usually worked with an ex-cop who was funny, and his stories would occupy those dull moments. We were becoming very good friends. He was a professional kickboxer who received his training from Chuck Norris, the actor. His hands and feet were considered lethal weapons. If he was ever arrested, they would not only cuff his hands but also shackle his feet. On a few occasions, I got to see his skills in action. It was amazing what he could do.
My day off was the Monday before Thanksgiving, and I felt pretty good. My plan was to have a nice, quiet night at home with the kids—maybe rent a few movies and that sort of thing. Lydia came into the house and immediately went into her room. She seemed to be in a mood but I didn’t think much of it.
The phone rang; it was my mother. “Steven, I found a note Lydia wrote. I didn’t go looking for it or anything. I found it on the floor. She must have dropped it out of her purse or something like that.” I could tell by the sound of her voice something serious was going on.
“A note?” I asked.
“Yes,” she replied, with a serious tone.
“What did it say?” I had to know. I never made it a habit of looking through their things, and I know my mom and she wasn’t that type, either. But when she found it, she opened it to see what it was and there you go.
“She is planning to marry her boyfriend, Bill.” Well, I breathed a sigh of relief. Of course she was. All girls have that fantasy about getting married. “She is planning on marrying him the day after she graduates,” my mom said, very worried. Now that was a different story. Lydia was going to college. We had already picked a college for her, about four hours from home.
“What are you talking about? Lydia is going away to college,” I replied, now very worried myself.
“They are planning on getting married and she is not going.” I heard the crack in my mother’s voice and I knew she was near tears.
“Let me get off the phone and see what is going on. I’ll call you back.” I hung up the phone and took a few minutes to gather my thoughts.
I called Lydia into the living room. She walked in with a look of defiance on her face. She knew what we were going to talk about, and she already had planned her course of action. This was a moment I completely handled the wrong way. I should have just kept my mouth shut and waited it all out, but then again, I couldn’t let her give away her future because of a boy.
“I already know what you are going to say and there is nothing you can do about this, so you might as well save your breath,” she came at me, defensively, and did not even give me a chance to talk with her first.
“You are way too young and have too bright of a future for this, Lydia,” I snapped back at her.
“Well, I am marrying him, Dad, and there is nothing you can do about it, so don’t even think you can try,” she snapped right back at me.
“I did not raise you to ruin your life this way. This is not like you. What about all of your plans?” This went back and forth for about 15 minutes, and then she turned and headed down the hall, saying, “I am marrying him and you can’t stop me.”
There. She had said it. A few moments later she came rushing into the living room with her clothes in her hand. She did not say anything. “If you go out that door, you will not come back. I will not live my life constantly worried about you leaving. I just can’t do it,” I said with my voice trembling. She went out the door and slammed it behind her. I sat there wanting to run after her and remind her that she was my princess. I wanted to tell her how much I loved her and that I didn’t want her to grow up so fast. I wanted to stop her, but all I could get out was a whispered, “I love you, princess.”
She was gone, running down the street with her clothes in her hand to the waiting boyfriend’s car around the corner at the bottom of the hill. My heart instantly broke. I never really understood what that meant, until that moment. I could not breathe. I could not speak. I could not move. She was gone and there was no way to stop her from going. She was gone way too soon. Why did it have to happen so fast? I gave her everything I could. I stood by her in the best way a father could. Where was the helpless, innocent child I held in my arms? This was not the way this was to happen. She was to leave to go to college and come home on holidays. She was to have a great career, and only then would she marry and have a family. Marriage was to be the last thing on the list. She was not to run out my door, at 18, to a waiting boy, with her clothes in her hand. She was making life so hard on herself this way. I wanted to scream. I wanted to die. This was too much for me to handle. I raised her to be strong-willed, and in the end, it turned against me.
I sat there for what could have been an hour or more, thinking. Michael came through the door, took one look at me, and asked me what was wrong. I struggled to get the words out, “Your sister is gone. She left this afternoon.” Michael had a shocked look on his face as he listened, and asked, “She is not coming back?” That is the moment I completely broke down. It was the worst day of my life.
Thanksgiving came, and I hoped and prayed she would show up at Grandma’s, where we always went for holidays. She never came. I walked around in a fog all day long. Every time the door would open or the phone would ring, I would jump. She never showed up. No word, nothing. One thing we, as a family, always agreed upon was that no matter what we would always be together on holidays. It did not matter where we were or what we were doing. If it was a holiday, we were together. How could she forget our family promise? Looking back, I realized she was scared at the reaction she would get if she did show up. The whole day left me feeling more like a failure as a father.
That night when we got home, there was another can with the usual contents sitting on the porch. I lost it. I started screaming and yelling and I threw the can across the yard, screaming, “If you are watching me, you son of a bitch, come on out and we will handle this now. Me and you, motherfucker!” I screamed and I yelled until I could scream no more. Then I slammed into the house. The phone instantly rang, but when I picked it up, there was nothing but heavy breathing on the other end. I ripped the phone, cord and all, from its connection, and threw it against the wall. Then I stomped down the hallway, leaving the boys with their mouths wide open, as I slammed my bedroom door.
It was a good thing we had another phone, and when I woke up, it was ringing. I answered it to find out I was late for work. “Dammit,” I said as I jumped out of the bed, throwing my clothes on as I headed out the door. I drove like a maniac to get there. When I arrived, the mall was packed. I knew it was going to be a horrible day. About halfway through my shift, my friend the ex-cop and I got a call from a shoe store about a lady who had just stolen something from the store. They saw her take something, but they weren’t exactly sure what it was. They just saw her put it into her purse. We got the description of the lady and headed out into the mall to find her. We spotted her about eight stores down.
The ex-cop walked up to her and barely got out the words, “Excuse me,” when she took off running. We ran after her. She headed out the front doors into the parking lot. There, the ex-cop took over and caught up to her. He slammed her to the ground, cuffing her behind her back. She was crying as we walked back in and headed to the store. She was saying somethi
ng about how her baby needed something she could not afford. When we got back, a police officer was already there to meet us. When they emptied her purse there was a pair of tennis shoes in a baby size. You could tell from the size of the shoes we were dealing with a mother of a two-year-old or so. They asked the manager if the store would like to press charges and the manager did not hesitate with the answer, “Yes.”
The whole incident did not sit well with me at all. I can understand the importance of having a strict shoplifting policy, but in this case, she was desperate. Why couldn’t they see that? It was a desperate act, carried out in desperation. I knew deep down that if I needed something like shoes or food for my kids, I would have done the same. You would be amazed at what you would do for your children. They could have had the insight to see it as well, but instead they walked her away in cuffs. All of a sudden my job was not exactly the way I imagined it would be. I knew there would be shoplifters, or fights to break up, but witnessing sadness and desperation was not on the list. She was going to jail for nothing more than a pair of baby’s shoes. How senseless and heartbreaking was that? Now, I know you could come up with a lot of reasons for the justification of her arrest, and so could I, but the fact remains she was in trouble and was pushed to a point where she felt she had no other choice. She had never done anything like this before because when they pulled her record, it was clean. It made me sick—and it still does—that I participated in ruining her life, because of her desperation and a pair of baby’s shoes.
Blessed Are the Wicked Page 16