The older my brother got, the more he and Dad locked horns in particularly violent episodes. The tension in our house was always thick enough to slice, making it damn hard to breathe at times. They were having a row about one thing or another that got way out of hand, but then everything simmered down and I thought it was over. That was until I walked out into the living room.
My brother had his fist wound up in the collar of Dad's shirt and had lifted him onto the card table that was set up in front of the picture window. This wasn't going to end well. I fled down the hall to my room and locked the door. I sat cross-legged on the floor in front of my stereo and cranked up the volume to drown out the screaming and the fighting. I hugged myself and rocked back and forth in a vain attempt at comfort. I was so sick of having to endure such things every single day of the week. There was never a break from it, no time to catch your breath, shore yourself up and prepare for the next living hell. It was violence and chaos, 24/7 in that house.
My door burst open. I scrambled to my feet to see the two of them fighting over the damn pistol. I ran over and tried to push them back out into the hall. I did not want them fighting in my room, and I didn't want that loaded gun in my room either. Dad had the pistol in his hand. My brother was wrestling furiously with him, trying to take it away. I was pushing both of their arms upwards. If that pistol was going to go off, I wanted it to go off at the ceiling so that no one would get hurt. My brother twisted Dad's wrist until the pistol was pointing in my face. He put his finger over Dad's finger on the trigger and started to squeeze. "Shoot her Dad!" he yelled over and over again. The trigger pulled back farther. I closed my eyes and pushed their arms up with everything that was in me.
The pistol popped out of their hands and hit the floor. I recoiled away from it, afraid that it was going to go off. It skittered across my wood floor into the jewel cases that my CD's were in, sending shards of plastic flying everywhere. They continued fighting and wrestling with each other back out into the hall. There were paper bags full of newspapers stacked against the wall for recycling. My brother turned his rage on those, pummeling the bags with his fists until his knuckles were bloody, scattering blood spatter and newspapers everywhere. I was still so in shock from the gun incident that I didn't even realize the police were there.
I found the pistol. It had come to a rest under my bed. I retrieved it and carried it by the handle with my thumb and forefinger like you would any disgusting thing and handed it to one of the officers. Then I went back down the hall and robotically began to clean up the mess of newspapers. One of the men followed me. "Everything seems to be all right now..." I ignored him and continued to pick up the papers. "Try to get a good night's sleep...everything will look better in the morning..." I stood up and gaped at him, then laughed out loud. I laughed without humor all the way down the hall. "You don't know us very well" I said, my voice dripping with sarcasm. "You'll be back."
Since my Dad had a FOID card, the pistol was returned to him (of course). There would be several more hellish incidents before Dad decided the only thing to do was to leave. It was the way that he left that totally sucked. Not for me of course, but for Mom. They had many arguments about my brother. Dad wanted to throw him out of the house (he was of age by now), but Mom dug in her heels. Choosing between her son and her husband was not something she was willing to do. Both of them were making our lives a living hell, and neither one of them would be the lesser of two evils; they were equally hellish, and then some.
Every time my brother would get into trouble, Mom would insist that he be bailed out. She and Dad got into huge arguments about this. Now, as much as I hated my Dad, I agreed with him that bailing my brother out every time he got himself into trouble was a really bad idea. He would never learn to be responsible for his own actions that way. If Dad refused to pay to get my brother out, Mom bailed him out on her own. Little did she realize that by doing so, she was creating a monster. Once my brother realized that Mom would never kick him out of the house and would back him up over her husband, it took all of Dad's power away. That's when he started sneaking around with Ann.
He met Ann at the local Moose Lodge. While Mom would play the video poker machines, Dad and Ann would sit at the bar and talk. This woman actually had the stones to tell my mom to her face that she would never have anything to worry about from her. Mom had suspected Dad of having affairs for quite some time, but she was never able to prove anything. One night, while my brother was out, he saw Dad's truck parked behind the Moose Lodge. Dad and Ann were inside. He came home and told Mom what he had seen. It was March of 1991. Mom confronted Dad about it, and they got into a huge fight. Despite the argument, they attended the St. Patrick's Day party at the Moose together. The pictures from that party show them smiling and happy. That night, Dad didn't come home.
Mom wasn't too terribly worried about it, but when he didn't come home the next day either...she was more worried that something had happened to him. Technically, it had. Dad made the decision to move in with Ann. He came back to the house at various times while we were all at work and started taking some of his stuff over to Ann's a truckload at a time. Dad and Mom had been married for 34 years. He told her if she wanted a divorce that she was the one who would have to initiate it. She refused. They were still legally married when he passed away in March of 2008, much to Ann's dismay.
None of their friends knew what to do or say. They all liked both of my parents a lot, and I'm sure it was very awkward for them to see Dad with Ann all of the time when he was still married to Mom. After everything that she had put up with from that man for 34 years he walks away from her and humiliates her by living openly with his whore across town. Mom wanted to kill herself. While riding in my car one day, Mom started crying and said that she wanted to jump out. I had been very supportive, comforting her, talking with her, reassuring her that everything was going to be all right. Hearing that from her stunned me. I exploded. "He isn't worth it!" I cried. "For crying out loud, will you stop and think for one minute what kind of hell life has been for you while he was in it? You deserve so much better than that! You're so much better off now! One day, you will see that!"
Unfortunately, we still had my brother to deal with. He picked up where my Dad left off and continued to make our lives a living hell. Out of the frying pan into the fire.
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