Welcome
It is a cold, windy winter night in January, 1959. I have just turned six. I am getting ready for bed. My father is yelling at my mom in the other room. Today I went to church with Grandma and learned about praying to God. As I crawl between the cold sheets of my bed, I pull my teddy bear close and start repeating over and over and over, God, please help me.
1. Before the Beginning
My brother Eddie tells me I was two years old when I wandered under the raised bed of the dump truck my father was repairing. He said the old man freaked out and beat me with the vise grips he was holding in his hand. He said he felt bad that he could not protect me or stop me from being hit by our father. He was seven years old.
I grew up in a world of violence and unpredictability. I learned to protect myself the best I could. I learned to take care of myself because no one else would. I learned to lie, to conceal, and to cover my fear with anger and violence.
It has been a twenty-year journey for me to find the place where there is love for me, where I can release the fear that comes so easily to me and anger melts away. I have found forgiveness for my father who was so brutal and for my mom who was unable to help me or herself. I have found peace within myself and meaning in my life.
No one knew the abuse that went on in our home, as we all learned to keep it hidden. No one knew my wish to make it stop. And later, no one knew the fear that overwhelmed me and drove me to hit and hurt the ones I loved most.
This is the story of my life. I have found a way out of my anger and fear. Others can, too. By telling my story, it is my wish to bring hope of healing to others who have been abused. It is my wish to give those who are in an abusive family the strength to get out and get help for themselves and their loved ones. And it is my wish to awaken anyone who will listen to the responsibility we all have to speak for those who do not have a voice.
I asked my mom about Eddie's story, and she said it was true. She said my father had beaten me for walking under the truck to insure it would never happen again. It wasn't his fault, she said; his brother had died from a car falling on him. She couldn't stop him, she said; she was too afraid.
For most of my life, I felt that I was followed by a curse. Things went wrong for me, and no matter how hard I tried, somehow I was always screwed out of the things I wanted most. I got the curse from my father who got it from his mom.
Some say the curse has been in our family for generations. Others say it began on a sunny autumn day in a northwest Oregon logging camp. The year was 1929.
With the camp equipment in good repair, Grandpa Fox was taking advantage of the quiet afternoon to work on the family car. He took my Uncle Daniel, three years old, by the hand, and the two of them sauntered outside to give Grandma room to prepare the logging crew's evening meal.
It was a routine brake job. Grandpa handed Daniel a toy dump truck and sat him in a pile of soft dirt by the car. He gathered his tools and laid them neatly on a piece of canvas. He got out the bumper jack, raised the front end of the car, and smiled at Daniel playing happily by himself.
He removed both front wheels and used a small hammer to dislodge the bearings. Setting them on the canvas, he removed the worn brake linings. He worked with precision and accuracy as he carefully replaced the old linings with new ones.
Picking up the bearings, he headed for the camp workshop to clean and repack them with new grease. Anything worth doing is worth doing right was his motto. The car would be better than new when he was done.
Clean parts in hand, he made his way back to the car. As he rounded the corner of the house, he stopped. The car lay silently on its front bumper, the jack lying in the dirt, and Daniel pinned, lifeless, beneath the car.
I am told that Grandma never forgave Grandpa for Daniel's death, and she spent her life as an angry and bitter woman. She raised six children in anger, and in 37 years of marriage, she and Grandpa never felt relief from the curse.
My father, Donald Edward, was just a year old when Daniel died and often felt the brunt of Grandma's anger. I do not believe that Grandma was ever sorry for anything she did out of anger. She did not grieve anything. I know that in all that happened in our family, my father never grieved anything, either, or ever said he was sorry. He was never sorry for anything he did that hurt anyone. Behind the family anger was tremendous fear, fear of grief, guilt, and the unknown.
I was born into a family of anger and had no choice but to live with it. I believe my father had no choice, and neither did my grandma, and perhaps neither did countless generations before her. My grandma's reaction to her pain affected her husband, her children, and her grandchildren. It infected generations of people who have no idea they carry the poison created by her response to her pain. I do not believe she knew; it is just the way things were. And I do not believe it started with her. But it can end with me. Perhaps it has always been my mission to end violence everywhere.
When I look at my father's life I see my own. I see the path my life could have followed and did indeed follow for more years than I care to remember. When I finally learned that I could become the creator of my life and change my life experience, I had not only triumphed over my own struggles but over those of my father and generations of my family before him.
I was born to worship a man who taught me I was a victim and that my life was worthless. Those imprints will be with me for the rest of my life. I know they are untrue, and yet they affect me in everything I do. I accept that they are there and have learned to live my life as a loving and creative force. My father was unable to do that and is living out his life as a victim, struggling in anger against forces he doesn't understand and can't control.
Tragedy befell my father when he was thirteen and confirmed the existence of the family curse. My father, Don, was the oldest of four children at that time, and my Uncle Harold, age four, was the youngest. Their mother had just returned from a trip to the grocery store, and hearing the car pull in, Don immediately went out to help unload the groceries. Harold was at his heels. Their mother was already unloading the first two bags. As she backed away from the car, Harold scrambled into the driver's seat. He bounced on the seat, grinning. He honked the honk and turned the wheel from side to side, making engine sounds with his voice. Just as Don reached in for a bag of groceries Harold stepped on the clutch. The car rolled forward and forced the door closed on Don's hips. The curse was back.
At first, it appeared to be nothing more than a bad bruise, but over the next few weeks Don's right hip refused to heal. When two months had passed, his father finally insisted that his mother take him to see a doctor.
After a battery of tests, the doctor was unapologetic. I'm afraid your son has a condition called osteomyelitis, he said. It's an infection that causes deterioration of the bones. In your son's case, it has infected his hip and will spread throughout his body with time. He recommended immediate hospitalization in order to save Don's life.
On the drive home, the only words from his mother were, Damn car. And Harold has never forgiven himself for ruining Don's life.
Don spent three years in Good Samaritan Hospital in Portland. He was given a room with two beds, but the second bed was rarely used. He entertained the hospital staff, and often they could be found congregated in his room during their off hours.
He always had a book in his hand and loved reading from the encyclopedia. With the help of a tutor, he finished high school and two years of college while he was there, all before his 16th birthday. People who knew him at the time say he was charming and highly disciplined. He impressed everyone with his uncanny talent for numbers, being likened to a human calculator.
He met a judge during his stay who had just lost a son to World War II. The judge immediately took a liking to him, and when he learned Don was interested in studying medicine or law, he offered to pay all expenses for any school Don chose to attend.
His parents sold nearly everything they owned to pay the hospital bills. They had been told in no uncertain terms that they had to pay or take their son home. His mother's anger gave her the strength to work two jobs and visit her son every day. She was never known to take a day off, ever. They could only afford one car, which his father drove to work, and his mother walked to work and climbed the hill to the hospital every single day. Don's eight-year-old sister, Beverly, sold her clarinet to help with the bills.
Don was plagued by the fact that the only cure for his disease was amputation, and he was constantly at odds with the doctors over this, trying to protect his deteriorating leg.
Shortly after his 16th birthday, his attention was caught by a familiar voice. It was one of the doctors speaking. We have no choice but to remove the leg, he said. The infection is spreading, and it's going to take his life.
In the silence, he heard his mother speak. "What will it cost?"
Immediately, Don began planning his escape. Despite his withered leg, he moved expertly on crutches. He charmed a friend's wife, who was a nurse at the hospital, into taking an adventure with him to New Orleans. There he quickly found work in a packaged liquor store. He bought Wellington boots and had a three-inch lift made for his right foot. He taught himself to walk without crutches; although he could never completely rid himself of the limp.
The nurse soon returned to Portland saying the adventure was nothing like Don had said it would be.
Within just a few months, Don met and married Catherine, nine years his senior, and eagerly settled into his role as husband and father to her two children.
He never returned to Portland and never contacted the judge. When asked in later years why he did not go back to school, he would say, I like my life just the way it is.
His father never stopped looking for Don. He hired private detectives in Portland to help with the search, but to no avail. The family eventually moved to Deer Park, Washington. Two years after Don's disappearance, a letter arrived in the mail. Don had been found.
His father immediately called the liquor store and asked to speak to Don. There was silence as the phone changed hands, then Don said hello.
Son, said his father, This is your dad. How are you doing?
Don and Catherine soon came home to visit, but it was only a matter of days before the curse raised its ugly head. Don's osteomyelitis recurred in full force, and he was rushed to the local hospital. He was soon transferred to a larger hospital in Spokane, just over a hundred miles away.
In his absence, his mother and Catherine became quick friends, and while Don was still in the hospital, Catherine returned unexpectedly to New Orleans. It was only a matter of weeks before Father received divorce papers and no explanation. He was certain his mother had driven Catherine away.
He was discharged from the hospital broke and disillusioned, but his anger couldn't hide the fact that his family needed him. His brother Harold and three sisters were still at home, and his father had aged tremendously over the two years he'd been away. He stayed as his family lost their cafe and turned to sharecropping. He threw his energy into farming and stayed as they lost most of the crops to bad weather that year. He helped load the family possessions into a large storage van and move the family in with his mother's brother.
His parents found work, and Don took a job in construction on the Grand Cooley Dam. He pushed himself to work long hours and saved the lion's share of his earnings for a house for his folks. Even with his bad leg, he could outwork any two men. He had developed huge muscles in his arms and good leg, and he was smart and ambitious.
He even stayed after his father called one night to tell him the storage van had burned up with all their things inside. He redoubled his efforts, and eventually his parents were able to purchase a small house.
With the curse temporarily at bay, Don quit his job and moved to Moses Lake. He craved the warmth and stability of a family of his own. The first ingredient was a stable job, and he set his sights on the Bureau of Reclamation. He had made up his mind to work there, and so he did.
It was at the Bureau that Dad met my mom, Ella Robb, and in three weeks he had made her his wife.
Ella was a tall, good-looking gal who loved horses and had many friends. Despite all evidence, she saw herself as isolated, fat, and ugly. At thirteen, her mother sent her to see a psychologist because she seemed so unhappy. I didn't tell him anything, Ella later said, and eventually I didn't have to go back.
At 18, she married. When she became pregnant six months later, her new husband immediately left her. She moved back home with her parents and gave birth to my brother Eddie Allan there. At her parents suggestion, she left Eddie with them and moved in with her Aunt Clara, near Portland, to attend business school.
Upon graduation, she quickly found work in the dime store in Moses Lake. Living at home, she was able to work while her folks took care of Eddie. She rapidly progressed to working for a lawyer's office, then a bank, and then, through her father's influence, for the Bureau of Reclamation. As part of the secretarial pool at the Bureau, she earned more than she had ever thought possible and looked forward to being able to afford a place of her own.
It was her father who introduced her to Don. What it was about Don that especially attracted her, she was never quite sure. He was charming, convincing, and very presentable. His voice, posture, and presence were commanding. He was attractive and persistent in his pursuit.
Their marriage, in April of 1951, changed the lives of everyone in the family.
Father and Mom settled comfortably into a little trailer provided by the Bureau. Husband, wife, and son. Eddie had a father, and things were as they should be.
The first thing Mom noticed about Father was that he never did laundry. He had closets full of dirty clothes. When things got too dirty, he stuffed them into cupboards and bought new ones.
Father included Eddie in everything they did together. He seemed overly strict, but at least Eddie had a father now. That was enough for Mom to overlook what she later called Father's mean streak. Father was stricter with Eddie than Grandpa Robb had been. When Eddie got out of line, Father would whack him on the butt, grab him, and shake him. Father's rules were absolute, with no tolerance for mistakes, and the consequences were always extreme for the situation. Grandpa spoke to Father one time about how strict he was with Eddie, and Father told him to stick to his own business. Grandpa never interfered again.
It wasn't long after they were married that Father hit Mom, as well. They were talking in bed one night, and the conversation gradually became a disagreement, then an argument, and then he hit her. There was no real damage, she says, I didn't get a black eye. She doesn't even remember the conversation.
She thought of leaving him in those early years, but thought, How stupid could a person be to have been married twice at my age, and she stayed. She stayed because of not wanting to look stupid.
During their first anniversary celebration Mom announced she was pregnant. With the promise of a larger family, Father went to work immediately on their future. He made arrangements to purchase a couple acres of land just outside the city limits. He made a deal on a contract that would allow him to build the house and pay for the lot when the house was finished and he got his mortgage.
Father worked all day for the Bureau and late into the night, every night, building his dream home. There were two neighbors also building homes close to his.
Despite all his efforts, by July Father was behind schedule and needed to complete the house to obtain a loan. He quit the Bureau in late July and worked on the house fulltime through November. Mom had quit working as well because of the pregnancy. They gave up their home and moved into the new, unfinished house. Eddie stayed with his grandparents a few miles away.
No matter how hard Father tried, one thing after another seemed to interfere with the completion of the house. There was no city water available because they were outside the city limits. Halfway through the project, Father determined it would be a duplex instead of a single-family home. The banks would not talk about financing an unfinished home to an unemployed couple.
As smart as he was, my father never did his homework. He pretended that he knew everything, and he was very convincing, even to himself.
In November, with no heat or water, they rented a room at a motel. Mom would stay with Father at the house while he worked late into the evening. Then they would go to the motel to sleep. This continued until November 24, when Dallas Edward was born.
Mom was in the hospital for three days, during which time Father borrowed his in-laws camper trailer and set it up in a small trailer court next to the hospital. It had no bathroom, there was just the public shower and bath in the trailer court, but it was warm and affordable. He had it all set up for Mom and Dallas when they got out of the hospital. He continued to work on the house fulltime, trying to get it done before the contract deadline.
On December 3, the contract called for payment in full. On December 4, Father lost the house. He blamed everyone except himself, and he was angry at everyone for his loss.
It was winter, and work was not easy for Father to find. As Mom would recall, losing the house brought out a side to Father that she had never seen, but always suspected. He could get very angry and be very mean. It came out at the strangest times. He was much more critical of how meals were cooked and how his laundry was done. Mom was on heightened alert for doing things right. All winter Father struggled for work. His lawyer managed to collect $2,700 on the house deal, but with attorney's fees Father did not end up with enough to cover what he had spent on materials.
Valentine's Day came with a temperature of 3 degrees and the air dancing with crystals of snow. Mom and Father spent a quiet, lazy morning at home and the afternoon visiting with their best friends Marge and Harry. It was a short drive home, and Mom fixed a simple dinner. They settled the boys into bed and grabbed a book to read before going to sleep.
It was almost 10:00 PM when Dallas awoke crying. Father walked down the hall and comforted the baby. It wasn't long before he was sleeping again, and Father went back to bed. A half hour later, the baby awoke again, and again Father comforted him back to sleep.
Around midnight, Father awoke and got up to check on Dallas. He found that Dallas had kicked off his covers. As he pulled the covers over the baby's body, he could sense that something was wrong. He shook the baby gently and realized that Dallas was not breathing. He picked up the baby and yelled to Mom to meet him at the hospital.
With baby Dallas in his arms, he ran on his crippled leg across the frozen field separating the trailer court from the hospital. He didn't feel the rocks or icy weeds against his bare feet.
There was nothing the doctors could do. They called it crib death.
Grandma Fox made all the arrangements for the funeral. During the service, it was with shock and horror that the family heard the minister say that Dallas Edward would not be allowed in heaven because he had not been baptized. Mom watched in silence as they lowered the small coffin into the cold, frozen ground.
With Father out of work, the burial expenses were more than they could afford. A white wooden cross marked the spot where they had buried their son. Weeks later, Mr. Morris, the mortician, provided free-of-charge a small, concrete headstone with the word Fox on the cold, flat surface. When Mom arrived at the cemetery, she was astounded to find that Mr. Morris had placed it on the wrong grave. She expressed her concern, but it was never moved and she withdrew.
There was no time to grieve. She took a job as a waitress in Elmer's Chinese American Restaurant. She shuddered any time she saw anybody with a baby and for months tried to avoid looking at babies at all.
Through the help of Grandpa Robb, Father landed a position with Stillwell Engineering as part of a surveying crew for Larsen Air Force Base in Moses Lake. With the new employment, they swiftly moved from the little camper into a rental house.
It wasn't long before Father came home with the news that his company would be relocating. They were government contractors, and when this contract was complete, they would move on. Mom was clear she was not moving.
Grandpa Robb told Father of an opening on the Air Base, driving truck. With this job came the opportunity for government housing, and the family moved into a duplex in the government section of town.
2. In the Beginning
I believe that I became a part of my family at conception. It was only a month or two after Dallas death that my mom discovered she was pregnant with me, and I like to imagine I brought some measure of comfort into her life. Having just moved, and with Father and Mom both working, there was new hope in the air.
After just a few weeks Mom quit her job in the restaurant, saying the work was just too much with being pregnant. She stayed home, as her mother had done, cooking, cleaning, and taking care of Father and Eddie. Father soon moved up in his company and was delivering cement.
Whenever he was in the neighborhood, Father would stop by the house, pick up Eddie, and take him along in the truck. In the evenings, Father would carefully leave his lunchbox where Eddie could find it. Eddie would approach the lunchbox with a gleam in his eye. Would it be in there? he'd think. He'd flip the clasp and open the lid. Without fail, there would be a sucker in there for him to find. Mom would smile whenever she saw these hints of joy and bonding between father and son.
Eddie did not share Mom's bliss. He was angry at her for bringing this man into their lives, a man who was strict and controlling and who had to be watched and obeyed. To this day, he is angry at Mom and hides his true feelings, pretending to be nice to her. For her part, Mom says, In a way, I am as guilty as their father was, for not doing anything to stop the violence. I am lucky my children speak to me. At least they are kind to my face.
Mom's home life came at a price. She was not a good cook, according to Father, and a terrible housekeeper in his eyes. She was a shit stacker. She would have stacks of things in all the corners. Father would spend hours telling her how to cook. He knew everything about cooking, just like everything else. Nothing Mom did was right enough for Father, and she lived on constant alert for doing things wrong. The smallest things would set Father off, and he did not hesitate to hit her or Eddie or both of them. Doing things wrong was the most feared thing in our house because the wrath of Father could be unbearable.
When he wasn't hitting Mom, he was threatening her. He threatened to kill her. He threatened to make her so ugly no one would want her. He threatened never to let her see her children again. He threatened to come and get her if she left and bring her back.
In front of other people, Father was always a really nice guy. He always put on a good face. He loved socializing and playing cards with the neighbors, all the while devising ways to win by cheating and sending signals to Mom. At home, he looked for reasons to justify his anger, always looking for what was wrong and never praising anyone inside the family. Mom screwed up everything, the cooking, the cheating at cards, the housecleaning. There was a constant feeling of being in trouble in our family. Mom learned early in the marriage that staying out of trouble was the smart thing to do. Even today, she says, Some of the violence was my fault. I made it worse by talking back or nagging. The best thing to do was to go along.
When asked if there was anything she loved about Father, she replied, There must have been. I was with him for 36 years. But I have never heard her say anything about love or loving him. At first she was ashamed to leave, then she was trapped and afraid. When he eventually left her for another woman, his divorce was the biggest favor in the world. He never would have stopped abusing her. He never would have changed. He never would have changed with her.
I was born on Dec. 9, 1953. Mom tells me the thing she remembers about my birth was a lady named Leotta who gave birth to a baby boy on the same day. The only difference was that Leotta gave her son up for adoption. Mom says that she didn't eel anything about me. Perhaps she wasn't ready for another child, or perhaps she was afraid to love me.
When I ask her about my early childhood, her answer is always the same, You were a good boy. Her decisions about me were based on how my father responded to me.
Father held his distance.
The first year of my life was spent traveling to and from the doctor's office. My parents were so afraid I would die. When Dallas died, my parents did not really have an answer for what had happened. They second guessed themselves and did not want another baby to die. I spent most of my time quietly in a crib or playpen, but at the first whimper or runny nose I was taken to Doctor Tracey. My experience was that of being held at arm's length. I have no sense of ever being held or cuddled by my mom or my father. Everyone was scared to touch me, afraid that I would die.
Moses Lake was in an economic boom at that time, with the building of Larsen Air Force Base to house the Titan missiles. Dad hooked up with a neighbor, George Berg, who had an inside track on contracting with the air base for hauling. He and Father bought three used dump trucks, Father borrowing his half of the money from Grandpa Fox, and they were soon operating a profitable business.
Eighteen months later, the government had completed the material hauling portion of the job, and George and Father were out of work. Don, George suggested, Why don't we relocate and keep the business going? There are plenty of opportunities outside Moses Lake. Father smiled. He and George made a good team.
He brought up the idea with Mom, and they talked. But again, Mom was very clear that she did not want to move. She was not moving. Period.
Father and George split up the equipment, leaving Father with two of the trucks. He repaid Grandpa Fox and watched as George and his wife drove off for California.
With the contract over, we moved out of government housing and rented the top floor of an old farmhouse. Father had trouble finding work for the dump trucks, being cursed with one problem after another, and Mom was pregnant again.
Father continued to take Eddie with him in the truck. One day he decided that Eddie could drive the dump truck ahead while he loaded dirt and gravel from the side of the road. He gave Eddie instructions and placed him behind the wheel. He put the truck in granny gear, and it slowly moved forward. All Eddie had to do was steer. This was too much for a boy of seven, and Eddie couldn't keep the truck going straight. Soon, Father threw down his shovel and pulled Eddie from the truck. He struck Eddie about the head and shoulders, yelling at him all the while.
As Eddie would later recall, He yanked me out of the truck, beat the crap out of me, and put me back behind the wheel, telling me I'd better get it right. To this day, Eddie hates big trucks.
Eddie had such a hard time with Father that he did not remember anything about our childhood when I first asked him. This is a family trait, forgetting what's happened. We do not remember things that don't feel good; nobody in the family does.
Father soon sold one of the trucks. It was a severely cold winter, and Mom recalls huddling around an oil stove trying to keep warm. Father struggled to find work. Before winter was over, he sold the second truck to keep food on the table.
Grandma Fox and Uncle Daryl sewed and converted Father's clothes into a wardrobe fit for a car salesman. Father took a job selling cars for the Oldsmobile dealership, and soon things were looking up. He got to drive new cars home every day, and he always came home bragging about how good he had done that day. Once again, he was earning the money he needed to support his growing family.
In March, my younger brother Albert Dallas arrived. As the nurse brought him to my mom's side, Father's eyes lit up, and he exclaimed, What a beautiful baby! At that moment, Mom knew Albert was special and he would be her favorite. He is still her special son.
My world was changing. I had been the baby of the house for 2-1/2 years. My parents had paid attention to everything about me. They had taken me to the doctor's office all the time. Now all the attention was on the new boy.
It was more than simple sibling rivalry. They treated Albert differently. My mom loved holding him. Every day I watched the way she treated him. I can still feel anger well up inside my throat just thinking about the way Mom treated him.
It was not long after Albert arrived that Mom was back to spending her days riding horses, sewing, and cooking. She seemed happier since Albert had come into the world.
This was the beginning of my war with Albert. He was the enemy, and I hated him.
The following spring, when I was 3-1/2, Grandpa Robb was transferred out of the area, and Mom and Father bought my grandparent's house in Cascade Valley. It was a modest, two-bedroom home which Grandpa had built himself, with a small, two-car garage. It was on a double lot backed by a large field belonging to a neighboring farm. To me it was a mansion with a huge yard, the biggest in the neighborhood.
Father had plans for making the house right. He did not approve of the way Grandpa Robb had built it.
Eddie, Albert, and I shared a bedroom. Father sold cars. Mom took care of the house, the cooking, and Albert. She was pregnant again, and I was aware of more competition for my mom's attention.
Father's attention was not something anyone wanted. It was as though he carried a gun of anger. When it was holstered, life was fairly predictable, but when he took it out, you never knew who or what was going to get it. Most of the time, the look was enough to stop anything that irritated Father. But when his tongue went over his lower teeth, that was the sure sign someone was about to get hurt.
Each of us has our stories about experiencing the wrath of Father's anger. Eddie caught the worst of it. Father seemed bound and determined to teach Eddie how to be. My way of dealing with it was to disappear. I spent my time hiding out and not being noticed.
I used to follow Eddie around like a pet puppy. He was so cool in my eyes. He was smart, tall, and had lots of friends. Sometimes I would not be allowed to go with him, but when I was¦ oh, the polliwog pond, the tree climbing, hiding in the farmer's fields, and most importantly, going to the little store for treats. Life did not get any better than when I was with Eddie.
School started, and Eddie was off to first grade. I was so jealous that he got to spend time away from home. He got all those fancy new clothes and to ride that big, yellow bus. How I dreamed of the day I would be on that bus with him.
It was about this time that Grandpa Robb died. He loved fishing, and it was on the Smith River near Great Falls, Montana that he passed away. He, Grandma, and another couple had been fishing since early morning. Feeling very tired, and with his arm hurting, he lay down beside the bank of the river and drifted off to sleep. It was his heart. He died quickly, without pain, doing what he loved most in his life, fishing.
Father moved Grandma Robb to our neighborhood, a block from our home. I couldn't wait to visit her. I remembered all the times I'd spent with Grandma and Grandpa before they moved away. When I would visit, Grandma used to sit on my bed and read stories to me while Grandpa snored. Boy, could he snore! I also remembered the drawer in her kitchen where she kept the suckers. It was a white, metal kitchen cabinet, and the suckers were in the third drawer down.
Soon, the hateful day came when Jenny was born. She arrived home in a beautiful white basket. She was small and dressed in a pink blanket and frilly white outfit. My father called her his little princess.
For me, her presence in the house gave me feelings of being worthless, alone, and unimportant. She was the final evidence I needed to prove I was in the wrong family, maybe on the wrong planet. There was no thinking about it; that was just the way it was. I was all I had, and that was just the way it was.
Eddie, Albert, and I slept in the second bedroom of the house Grandpa had built. It was only a few days before Father announced the remodeling project we had heard so much about. He would remodel the second bedroom for Albert and Jenny. Eddie and I were moved to the utility room on the back of the house. He put in a makeshift closet and a dresser along with our bunk bed, and we were set.
Father had always complained about the way Grandpa had built the house, so the remodel was just the thing to make the house right. He did the living room, the two regular bedrooms, the bathroom, and the dining room. He installed electric heat in the ceilings, hand plastered all the walls and ceilings, and created a beautiful home. Our room he didn't touch. It always felt to me like a place where you put things you do not want.
One afternoon, after Father and his friend Lou had finished plastering the walls in Albert and Jenny's bedroom, I snuck in and looked around. It was the most beautiful pink I had ever seen, bright and alive with color. It was perfect. The plaster was still soft, and with my finger on the wall where Albert's bed would be, I carved the letters, S-T-E-V-E. That would do it. The old man would get him now.
Albert, of course, was not even a suspect in the crime. I was immediately accused of doing the carving, which I obstinately denied. What surprised me was that Father seemed to be confused by my denial. He couldn't make sense of why I would carve Albert's name into the wall, then stand and lie in the face of being caught.
I was never clear on the punishment. Yep, I got a whipping, but was it for the lying, the carving, or for being stupid? I settled on for being stupid. Boy, was I stupid!
There were different levels of punishment in my world. The whack could be applied to any part of the body with an open hand. Then there was the pants up belt whipping, then the pants down, bare butt, grabbing the ankles. So as to define each and give them a name: whack “ bare hand on anything, spanking “ pants on with belt, whipping “ pants down with belt, beating“ total annihilation by any means available or necessary.
Before receiving punishment, Father always gave the same speech, This is going to hurt me more than you, but I have to get your attention. Then at the end, he would say, Now that I have your attention, blah, blah, blah.
Some other favorite sayings were: I am going to whip you til your boots are filled with blood, Jesus H. Christ, what the hell is wrong with you? You're just too stupid to learn, You are as dumb as a box of rocks, and, I brought you into this world, I can take you out.
Jenny was six months old when Father decided he had had enough of being a father and husband. It was never clear what was the final straw, the house being dirty, dinner not cooked right or on time, or the lack of appreciation for all that he gave us.
He came home from work and started breaking dishes, tipping over furniture, and yelling about what animals we were and how we did not deserve anything. He had done everything for us and gotten nothing in return.
It was not long before he had packed his suitcase and left, vowing never to return. Mom never shed a tear. Fine, was her only comment.
Grandma came over to watch us right away; while Mom went off to look for a job. She was hired immediately to work mornings at the coffee bar in Ditzens Grocery. Grandma watched us while Mom worked, and a peacefulness settled over our household.
In four days, Father was back. There was no explanation, no apology; he was just back, as though nothing had ever happened. We would later learn that he had traveled to Seattle and landed a job there working in a car lot. It only lasted one day, and he returned home. It was never talked about. He was finished selling cars. He was up to more with his life.
Father had accumulated a small savings account and got the idea to start a business building and repairing boats. With Mom working, there was enough income to meet the essentials for the family, so Father worked on boats at home.
Mom soon had the opportunity to return to Elmer's Chinese American Restaurant, working the evening shift. The pay was better, but she was now away from home five nights a week.
Mom pre-cooked all our dinners, and even though Father complained about her cooking, he warmed them. He loved commanding the house in her absence. As long as we did exactly what we were told, trouble was avoided.
Doing dishes was always an issue. At first we were too slow. Then Father trained us to get them done in twenty minutes or get a whipping. It only took a couple of whippings before Eddie and I could complete the dishes in less than twenty minutes every time.
Occasionally, there were late-night dish inspections. Our bedroom was beside and behind the kitchen. Being able to listen to what Father was doing in the kitchen created the illusion of being prepared for whatever might come.
It would start with his walk being slower, heavier, and more pronounced than usual. In the kitchen, we could hear the dishes being set on the counter. At that point, my mind wants to go blank, but I can remember listening to him walk into our doorway and say coldly, I want to see you boys in the kitchen right now. There was nowhere to go. It was a long walk from my bed to the door, maybe five feet. I rounded the corner and saw the cupboard completely emptied. I told you boys what would happen if I found dirty dishes one more time.
I thought about how wrong this was. It wasn't my fault. I didn't know who had done those dishes, but I didn't think we had done them.
Whatever it was I said then was wrong. Father exploded. So after a good, strong whipping with the belt, there were all those dishes to do and twenty minutes to get them done.
Over the next three years, dish inspections happened a couple times a year. We would usually be woken up at night by being grabbed by the ankle and pulled out of bed onto the floor. From the age of five, I never really slept.
This is when I began to get an inkling that something in our family was seriously wrong. I could find no one else who had dish inspections in the middle of the night, and it made no sense because he would inspect dishes we had not used in months.
In the fall of 1958, I started school, and Grandma Robb moved in next door! Father decided to fix a place for Grandma's trailer next to our house. He put in an additional septic tank and dug a ditch from the well house to the trailer. He added a 10 X 30 covered patio in the front.
Father had a reverence for Grandma. He took great care of her and always treated her with respect and kindness. She was a huge part of our lives. She was loving and accepting of everyone, even Father. She loved me and treated me as though I were special. She always believed in me. She taught me to pray, and her house was a safe port in the constant storm of my life. Living next door, she immediately started giving each of us piano lessons.
My father did a lot of mean and nasty things to our family, but he always made sure Grandma was taken care of.
