Dad's Root Beer

Even though we didn't have much money for Christmas, my brothers and I never noticed. We got new things, and what they were wasn't our first concern. We were just happy to have presents under the tree.

After my parent's divorce, mom was the one that put them under the tree, for the most part. Dad would drop by with some little gift (which we always welcomed), wheedle out some of our Christmas dinner, then leave.

Usually, it was fairly normal.

And then we had the time Dad came barreling through our door, covered in leaves and dirt and snow with a crazed look in his eyes and 12-pack of Dad's Root Beer in his hand. He dropped it beside Elijah, said "Don't ask me where I got it," and sprinted back out the door without even trying to get some dinner.

He still refuses to talk about the whole thing. Whenever it comes up, he shakes his head and won't speak. We generally have some sort of theory in regards to his past, but this is one of the few that we honestly have no clue about.

Faking Cancer

Normally, I post about experiences that are a fair bit in the past, since I like to have things with some sort of chronological order.

The exception is when something really worth writing about happens, like now.

So, my dad has a "friend" who is probably even more nuts than he is, if such a thing is possible. He's been to jail, had his kid taken away, is almost always drunk, and is fond of leaving threatening voice mails. We hadn't heard from him in years, and we'd all sort of assumed he'd gotten himself killed. He's that type of person.

But then we get a frantic call from my dad about how his friend showed up on his doorstep, begging for money to help with getting custody of his kid, and insisting that dad owed him. He looked pretty wretched (more than usual) and was almost crying on dad's doorstep. Dad told him to wait, went inside, and called us asking for an excuse to not help his friend.

Now, the woman dad is suffering from breast cancer, so mom told dad to say that he was dealing with some medical issues. Mom said he didn't have to divulge any information, just to say that it was private and he really couldn't help right now.

So dad heads back to his friend, apologizes profusely, and says he's been diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer.

Because that's the sensible thing to do.

Ten Demerits

One of my dad's favorite things was to try and turn us against each other. He always made a point of mentioning that Lucas was my mother's favorite (not true in the least; she never played favorites) and tended to punctuate compliments with a "not as good as -insert sibling here-. I like to think that we were able to ignore it, for the most part, but it got to us. Whenever we got into a particularly bad fight, dad inevitably came up at some point, no matter what started the argument.

Usually dad was a bit subtle about it. The incident with the demerits was not one of those times.

He decided (I can't remember what prompted it) that he would award his children points for doing things he wanted, such as getting him a glass of water or massaging his feet or taking his side in a fight.

Rather than rallying us to him, it pushed us together. When one of us got between him and mom, or pointed out one of his lies, we did it knowing we wouldn't hate each other for it.

Eventually, dad's shouting out the demerits given became a bit of a joke for us, and he moved on to other things. It might not seem like much, but it gave us hope to stand up together, even against something so simple.

Cycle of Violence

So, I think I've made it pretty clear that my father isn't the most balanced, rational person. Part of that is down to unfortunate genetics; he never had a chance at being completely normal.

But he could've been better; not normal, but less messed up if it hadn't been for his own childhood.

He was abused, far more than he ever did to us (not that I'm excusing him.) His father was a coal miner that made his family's life a living hell until he died from black lung. His mother wasn't much better; she just couldn't hit as hard.

I won't go into the details about how many times he saw his sisters thrown against the wall, or how many times he had to cover the bruises, how many times he had to sneak food because they refused to feed him.

His sister tried to poison his father, and none of her siblings objected.

That pretty much sums up how much they hated him.

Around forty years later, my brothers and I wished my dad would get into a car accident on the way home.

We tried to convince my mom to just pick up and leave, even though we had nowhere to turn.

I've read about the cycle of violence; I've seen it in action.

The pain of being abused pales in comparison to the pain of knowing that your father became what he hated and doesn't even see it.

The Game Board

For some reason, my dad decided to take my mom away from Georgia and go live in the woods. I think it might've had something to do with getting her away from any family that could help support her, but I haven't ruled out the possibility that he was running away from his mistresses. Or the FBI. He's done some pretty shady stuff. But anyway, he took us out to the backwoods of Montana, where I ended up growing up.

For most of my life, we had very little contact with the outside world, other than the occasional trips into town. I'm not even sure that counts, honestly. The town was a bit like a Twilight Zone episode; tiny, isolated, and nothing ever changed. We grew up with no electricity, and therefore no phones or televisions. For a good while (until we set up some water barrels and put in our own pipes) we had no running water, and had to use an outhouse. Which isn't actually all that bad, until you start thinking about spiders and packrats and all the other creepy crawlies that could be thinking about chomping down on you. Especially in the middle of the night.

Also, kerosene lamps. I still miss the smell.

We never had much money. At all. One year we ended up hunting and relying on our garden for food. I never even knew we were poor. Everyone in that area was.

While all this probably sounds like I'm complaining, I loved growing up like that. If I had a sane dad, it might've been close to perfect.

Except for winters. Winters were always difficult.

The Pieces in Play

So, I have a pretty big family, mainly due to my dad acting like he's on a one-man mission to impregnate almost every woman on Earth.

Full Siblings
Lucas
Elijah

Half Siblings (that I know of)
Sabrina
Tanya
David
Joel
Dustin

Other than Dustin, we all have the same dad, but I haven't met all of my siblings. Lucas and Elijah I was raised with, and Joel and Dustin were occasionally present, but the rest I have little to no contact with.  For the most part, I don't even think about them other than to do a quick mental check on whether I'm related to somebody I just met or do a headcount on how many siblings I have when I'm asked.

Sometimes I don't even bother to include them in the count because it's a bit difficult to explain how we're related without having a flowchart handy.

Blogging to Myself

If you were to look through a crowd and pick out the person with a completely hellish home life, it probably wouldn't be me. Chances are, I wouldn't stand out at all. I'm just another person walking down the street, just another person shopping at the store.

And I'm happy with that. It means I've done something right in moving on.
If you can't guess that my father was emotionally and physically abusive, I've won another little battle. If you can't guess that I've had more stepmothers than Mary Tudor, it's just another thing for me to smile about.

Of course, it seems a bit silly to be going on about how happy I am that you don't know these things while blogging about it. Counter-intuitive, even. But I have a reason for it, and it's not because I enjoy being dramatic (but that is a hobby of mine): it's because I've reached a point where I'm tired of keeping all these stories bundled up inside, and an anonymous blog seemed like a good idea. In all honesty, some of the crap my father put my family through was a bit amusing, in a laughing-at-the-lightning sort of way.

Also, my therapist recommended it.