my mom called me the other day. 'so it's official,' she sighed, taking a drag on her cigarette.
'what's official?' confused, my mom has a tendency to lean towards drama.
'him. he's got a boyfriend now. it's all over facebook.'
my mom, trying to be strong and remain cool, unaffected. here's a woman pushing 60 who doesn't even know how to leave a voicemail message on her answering machine, let alone use a computer or navigate a facebook page. and despite the difficult past year and a half that she has led, she's still standing on her own two feet. single for the first time in 21 years. completely independent and not having anyone else relying on her for the first time in 42 years - no children or partner needing her financial and emotional support to get by day to day. no pets.
both my brother and i grew up without fathers. neither of us have ever met our biological fathers, and neither of us ever considered any of my mother's suitors a worthy replacement enough to refer to some man as 'dad.' i guess i had a closer excuse to that of a father figure than my older brother did, mom having been with this particular man for 21 years. age 7 to adulthood. but that monster was never my dad. i guess in college it got easier describing him as my 'step-dad' to people who didn't know him personally vs. 'my mom's fuckhead asshole live-in boyfriend.'
i never liked him. maybe it was the time he chucked a bag of m&m's at my leg, splitting the candied pieces and bruising my thigh and calling me an 'impatient fucking little bitch' when i was 7 and asked for a snack.
maybe it was how he encouraged my mom to have 'just one more' drink. or maybe it was how he called me a 'worthless fucking cunt bitch' on my 16th birthday after i failed my driver's exam. it could have been the time he threw me down on the floor and chased me with a chair, threatening to slam it in my face when i neglected to take my laundry upstairs in a timely fashion. oh, or the thanksgiving i surprised my mom with a visit from college and he locked me outside in the below zero temperature without a jacket. that was a good time. or the time i came home seeking comfort after an instance of sexual abuse and he told me to 'quit being such a selfish cunt' because i was upset that he and my mom went out bingedrinking instead of my mom spending the day with me.
he had a temper problem. always so angry. so fucking out of control. he would break things. slam cabinets until they fell off their hinges. shatter glass windows. scream and scream and scream. yell so hard he would foam at the mouth and spit in your space. break everything. i finally hardened up around high school and would never sleep without a secret knife tucked under my mattress in my bedroom. i dont' know if my mom ever knew about that. but i had to watch my back. and phones. i would never leave my room int he midst of one of his fits unless i had a cordless phone with me, with the '9' and the '1' entered, thumbing the second '1'.
he tried so hard to get me to call him dad. my mom would try to guilt me into sending him fathers day cards, which i never did. even at age 7/8, i was so puzzled by my mom. why did she choose him? why, when he would say these incredibly offensive slurs to me, would she stand beside him? wasn't i her baby? wasn't i good enough for her love? how could she be with someone who called her little girl a cunt?
i'll never know the answer to these questions. but being an adult now, and having found myself in some less than ideal relationships, i guess i can empathize with how love can make you blind. maybe. but still.
that never changed my love for my mother. despite her poor taste in men, she was still all i had. i was lucky enough to have one incredible older brother who would step in when necessary and play the parental role. buy me christmas/birthday presents. tell me he loved me. congratulate me on good report cards and cheer me on at my track meets, school plays. when mom would be drunk/passed out. when her partner would encourage her alcohol/drug abuse.
the fucker crossed the line. anyone who knows me personally knows the jist of what went down. asshole had a temper tantrum at his work. lost his job. mooched off my mothers' $12/hour temp work salary. maxxed out credit cards to pay the mortgage. lost their house. started hanging with some young boys. got beat up (multiple times). got arrested for drug possession. beat up the young boys. got arrested again. beat my mother up. got arrested again. turned her world upside down. got arrested again.
she's been on her own without him in her new house since december, while they've been split up really for over a year.
apparently he got a facebook page. you can look him up, brent duckwitz, a real winner. with his meth face and yellow teeth. he's in a domestic partnership. and is interested in men.
so i guess my former-abusive-step-dad-but-not-really is gay. my mother's ultimate humiliation. he's slurring her name all over facebook. referring to her as a drunk and 'crusty.' if i ever see this man in person ever again, EVER. i don't think i'll be able to hold back my claws. that knife that was stashed under my mattress however many years ago, he's somehow managed to get his hands on and delve into my mother's pride and being. it makes sense, i suppose, where all of his unnecessary anger was stemming from. from this denial to admit who he really was his entire life. he was married for years before my mother too.
i hate him. so much. my mom is better off now. she might be lonely for a while. and embarassed. and sad. but at least now she is safe. and her eyes have opened up. but i have to say, when she started choking her sobs and muffled over the phone, 'jodi you were right all along, i should have listened to you from day one. . .' it wasn't the 'i told you so' gratification i had so yearned for in high school.
fucking facebook. fucking assholes. fucking life. just let my mom be.
i can't remain angry forever. but still. god. damn.
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