All my life I have said it. It being the what came outta my mouth because that was what I was thinking. Wars rage over the West condemning center earth ancient civilizations for keeping their women under sheets, kill them for speaking out or so-called acting out, and restricting or banning every feeling of passion from toe tapping fiddle music to personal rage over the hypocrisy of all cultures, East and West with the control by fighting.
It is worth fighting for. Be a patriot, fight for this or that. But are the two groups so different? Are we fighting just because Capitalists who make tons of money off of munitions and support of and for war, that propaganda keeps us fighting to generate money? More people are giving to politics now than ever – what saps we are. I gave too. To stand for my side – rather kneel; To fight for the way of life I believe we are all fighting for. But what is that way of life and is it just for a very few? Anywhere in the world?
Elders, even those who live thousands of miles from families in this continuing migrant and migrating world, want to share the stories of history.
But is the reception of stories lost by a fighting, angry generation suspicious at anything anyone says, so do not breathe to the deaf ears.
Stories of my father are wonderful and he was certainly a character to be polite – but I was waved to silence before I could tell a word. His stories are magnificent and they are shared and loved. But they are not shared to the angry people, they cannot hear anyway.
Communication is picked apart but sometimes, there is no misunderstanding – sometimes you know you have been thrown under the bus and it is set in stone you are going to take the fall. Your life, your story, your fight for existence, your home, will be dictated by family whose actions of respect and care, or lack of, will become your story.
I was astonished to hear a family member say, well no one has to know he did this, this, and that, he is dead now let them think well of him.
This is all well and good for his memory, but I am still alive and his actions stole our lives. I say, our Robin is dead – they said suicide.
There were statements given in court about violence from the 1950s, and through to a pool hall fight, maybe that was early 1970s that I believe might have resulted in a manslaughter charge, and then several statements in court from the in-laws, the preacher and the wife who now says to me – “let them think badly of you – I’m going to sell him as a saint.” Of course when his oxygen mask fell on the floor, one never got the answer why she didn’t pick it up for him – even his best friend said this was never his style – and according to the witnesses – who referred to him as ‘mean’, talked of how it took forever for him to die gasping for air.
The stories passed down – so easily get fixed and redressed and we all participate in sugar coating the truth – but knowing today what a poison sugar is maybe we should strip off the veneer and let the words flow.
Oh, how I cried on the phone and begged him to come home. Begged and even at times screamed out – HE is at the door banging to come in. But I was told no, he would not come and he would not tell his father, he was certain that HE would not hurt the children and I should be asking him for help to leave and move and get out of his house and out of their lives.
I had to move – anyway.”
HE would not have hurt me as such, or the children? Really, But HE was bringing to our house every piece of pussy HE could crack. And say what you will, but the animosity I had over his using me and others to satisfy his voracious appetite for women was not unjustified.
But the danger was in Daddy’s choice of ladies – he liked ladies who had homes and families to go to and unfortunately we lived near one of his haunts, a VFW on 2nd court so it was convenient for him to suggest to one to pop down to his daughter’s and then he wanted the bedroom – they had something to talk about. One was a wife, another was a daughter but it wasn’t long that word got around.
Then when Mr. So’n’So could not find his wife playing cards at the VFW with the girls like she was supposed to, the first place the guy checked was his daughter’s house. There is nothing like a drunk husband looking for his wife. And of course thought none too much of me for letting it go on.
I had to move – anyway.
But it did not end and later he always found a way to use my apartment – use my account at the florist – use my credit card for private purchases and then look like he was so nice to me paying some bills but they were his motel rooms and roses. Our cousin worked at his favorite motel and she did give a discount – as she said she would rent the room twice in a day – on busy days.
Who are we to tell a thousands of years old culture they must change even though the culture knows if you let the girls walk down those streets they are going to meet the hims and the hes of this world and there is no way to keep all safe. Who are we to say stoning a girl to death is worse than the ostracization that can occur in Western families over divorces. Who are we to go and condemn people because they will not conform to a way of life that is just as cruel as our own except they will be living and buying their goods and services instead of buying the goods and services of another dominant power.
Bob Dylan said it – everybody has got to serve somebody – But Robin didn’t – that is if she actually committed suicide. The coroner said something a wee bit different – but that is another story now viewing through rose colored glasses – although I don’t know how one would do that.
The family stories, the family DNA – what do we tell our grandchildren and what are they telling theirs? We know now with DNA, as a result of soldiers in distant lands, countless children were left behind. Here in this country where we will fight for our way of life – millions of tourists visit every year and they can count on getting laid a variety of ways – but less likely to leave behind offspring as in some places.
Robin and Daddy are buried together. Never any communication and the worst of his story was Dyslexia. I should have thrown the biggest fit in the history of misfits when a lesson program for his Dyslexia was refused. Damn dirty shame. As a woman I could cope with my glitches, in a second class sort of way but cope. But a man who cannot read as a Southern Macho Belt provider was open to all kinds of ridicule. Who had all kinds of temper problems and who was a charming center of the universe kind of charm them in the cities, charm them in the towns, charm them in the countrysides, and charm them on the banks of Lake Michigan, in the back seat of a mortgaged Desoto, doggy fashion – not my words… There were times when my life would flash and I would think – it is not worth it leave. Get away from it. It is infecting – contagious.
Tell me about him. But, don’t say anything bad about him.
I think his best is still alive, maybe not now, but he was super healthy and would be the type to go on and on at the nursing home. Last I knew he was living in a over-sized RV hooked up to all facilities in the back yard of his X-wife’s house.
The two of them were terrors from the time they were young from the Shady Side Grill and then around the world where every union job needed steam fitter welders. Asia and the Pacific, the Caribbean, Panama, and all over the USA. Add the Merchant Marine travel and with DNA testing we might expect to turn up new half siblings from almost anywhere in the world.
We know the boy is out there somewhere – “Mamma saw the baby with a head full of red curly hair.” The storyteller could not recall the name of the mother – but said – it was the pretty one – the pretty one.
There was also the story of the woman who began her own abortion with a coat hanger to get rid of the baby he gave her. Her court papers read like a house of horrors for a wife. He had a thing for dragging women by the hair and then cutting it off. Not my words, the court record.
Communication between people and what one remembers about anyone’s past sins and glories is all in the eye of the beholder and will rest with the last mouth telling – or writing in a blog. But it is not bad or good it just was.
I did want to know about the pool hall fight – I wanted to know. I still want to know. Maybe a few months of life reading through a couple of years of newspapers might find a tiny blurb. But this was his home territory and for some reason I recall the dead man was an outsider. I think everybody in the bar knew that he struck him first – but I never got to learn much.
If two people standing face to face, both speaking the same language can have miscommunications, we must think what we might be misunderstanding about each other beyond this. Two strangers trying to say these are my words of my life, they are said.
We talked everyday for the last five days of his life – talk is not the right word. He could not talk so the nurse who sat with him called – I was busy with the Gulf War I. He would call when they would see sirens on CNN that we could not see and we would wake and don the gas masks. I would say words to him he wanted and there was one day – I said to him – but you were all I had, all I had that could fight in my corner. (mother was wonderful, but she needed someone to fight for her, she could never fight for herself) and as I said this to him he sobbed – but it was true – he was my daddy and he decided to fight with me and snarl and be critical – and he ran his mouth with words of gossip and meanness.
I don’t go back often – I have not gone back often. One trip, I was at the mercy of whoever had a car. And, out in Bayview, being taken on a neighborhood drive could mean anything. No cell phones and the little witch took the phone in front of my eyes, saying he needed it in the garage where he was working – but there was no garage and soon she took off in the car and did not return for hours – long after we were expected – but more – long after my evening visit. But no one went to look for us.
Recent years I visit and almost the minute my companion leaves town and it is only me, it is vicious words of meanness from someone and then like a little gang of meanness at the first sign – attack.
Like being in a cult taught who their saints are and what the family stories are.
I thought much of the meanness was folks wanting to make sure any little ones did not want me and wanted them and wanted to make sure they had ammunition against me taking away their first-born males. But I certainly would not have put them with my folks – I loved them – and would of course want them to be in the best place.
The best place – loving and kind and truthful and open and with words.
May we all pray for the victims and their families of the heart breaking events
Marionetta Strung-Out 