Tuesday
Nov012005
Divorce Express
Nov 1, 2005
I don't recall giving my parents' divorce much thought. One day my dad was sitting at the dinner table, the next he wasn't. One moment my mom was this cookie baking, bathtub scouring, bedtime story telling entity, the next she was revving up and down our quiet neighborhood street on her turquoise bullet bike.
As for dad? He was the guy called "Dad" that lived in a tiny apartment in a vast wasteland known as Gallup, New Mexico where groups of tumbleweeds roamed the streets like gangs. When you're five, you don't give semantics like location much consideration. When Dad had lived at home, he didn't really. He had a job that forced him to travel to Wyoming from Utah much of the time. He also spent a significant chunk of his twenties working the graveyard shift.
In the grand scheme of my 5-year-old life, on the surface everything was status quo. Except of course, now we were dirt poor. But when you're that young, you don't know you're poor. It's your normal. You learn what poor means soon enough. When you're issued the bright pink school lunch ticket instead of the usual white. When all the kids asked why Monica has a different color, the same asshole that picks his nose and eats it pulled his finger from his nose long enough to shout "cuz that's what the poor kids get!"
My big brother taught me how to flip the bird that year.
My parents were both raised in the Mormon church. In case you haven't heard, the Mormons are a strict bunch. The church is run by a posse of old, white guys. The leader, he's called the Prophet. This cat claims to get regular visits from his pal God. Twice a year the Prophet and his cronies throws a big bash called General Conference to inform God fearing church members what The Big Guy has on his mind. Thousands of members from across the globe converge on the Conference Center in Salt Lake City to hear the latest.
Sometimes the Prophet says God lectures on the importance of not drinking and smoking. Other times the Big Guy is fired up about all the sex going on between The Unmarrieds. Recently the Prophet announced God was pretty pissed about the latest fashions. As I understand it, he wasn't real impressed with the spring collection and the re-emergance of Daisy Dukes, bare midriffs. Apparently God prefers his women in a Classic Cut Gap pant over a hiphugger. God was also bagging on those pesky gays... always with wanting the Civil Rights and such.
As you can well imagine, God pops vessels over the abomination that is adultery. No ifs, ands, or buts. So when my Mom strayed from the homestead, the Mormon church told her to pack her bags, she was finished. It's called excommunication. So like Nixon a few years before, my family left our little Mormon community, heads hanging amid the shameful scandal.
Mom settled in a modest split-level in the heart of another equally Mormon neighborhood and Dad headed for the hills. Of New Mexico. Mom, newly single at 28 and a mother of four, did what I imagine most women forced by pregnancy into marriage might do. She bleached her hair, bought a sports car and began dating a high school kid.
In the beginning, my chest puffed with pride when Mom arrived to pick me up from school in the shiny, midnight blue Camaro. As I matured and classmates valiantly took it upon themselves to educate me about terms like trailer trash and slut, I pretended I didn't see the tanned blonde woman roaring down the street, frosted and hairsprayed bangs winning the war against the wild wind whipping the rest of her hair like a tumbleweed. Def Leppard, Whitesnake and Skid Rowe often blared from vibrating car speakers. Sure it was cool that Mom liked the same music as me. I never had to deal with an outraged parent yelling at me to turn down that Aerosmith fellow, I'm trying to hear Celine Dion!
Then I went to Katie's house after school one day. The aroma of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies greeted me as we entered the professionally decorated living room, a stark contrast to the the empty living room currently mocking me at my own home.
"Oh! I didn't know you were moving" church members toiling for a thumbs up from The Big Guy would ask on their occasional pilgrimages to 'the bad house'. They'd ring the doorbell clutching plates of brownies, rice krispie treats, casseroles, determined to convince us to come to church next Sunday.
"No. We just moved the old furniture downstairs to the family room. The new couch is on layaway." The first time my Mom used this line I actually got excited, my mind envisioning a butter soft leather sectional like the one at Katie's house. With a built in recliner! And cup holders in the arm rests! And a fold out bed built right under the cushions!
"What kind of couch are we getting Mom! Huh? Mom! Mom! Is it a leather one?" My incessant questioning was answered with The Look. The dreaded look. The Look that speaks a thousand words. Words like trouble with a capital T. Grounded! Idiot! Spanking! Wooden Spoon! I Will Kill You When We Are Alone!
After the safety net of company departed my mother exploded.
"Have you lost your goddamn mind? We can't afford a new couch!"
"Oh." I soon learned the imaginary layaway couch was a ruse to keep nosey neighbors from the embarassing knowledge that we couldn't afford a new couch. Lesson number two in my young life that not having money is a shameful condition in which to find oneself.
We lived in a fairly middle class neighborhood. The exterior of 1278 North 685 West was representable. Well, mostly representable with the exception of the tattered sheet that languished in my brother's window in lieu of a curtain. At first glance we could blend in with the respectable, god fearing, two parent families on the block, mostly due to the impeccable condition of the front yard. Mom was born with the odd combination of a love for motorcycles and a green thumb. She can plant trees and flowers like nobody's business. She did and still does landscaping better than most professionals.
Mom may have been on good terms with a trowel and a shovel, but had yet to make the acquaintance of a hammer and a screwdriver. Therefore, inside the house was another story. Doors hung haphazardly in frames. the plastic runner Mom had tacked down the length of the hallway, in a futile effort to preserve the carpet, was peeling up like sunburned skin. Drawers were broken. Walls in the basement looked like swish cheese and provided the perfect vantage point from which one could spy on the makeout sessions of horny friends from our teenage years. The pantry door had to be gently coaxed into movement like an elderly man after a stroke. The door knob to the ONLY bathroom in the house would turn endlessly in its' hole, broken from too many bathroom break-ins with butter knives and straightened wire hangers.
It got so the person bravely attempting any sort of personal bathroom business would pull open the hairbrush drawer, cleverly leveraging it against the door. The drawer sat catty corner to the bathroom door and would briefly deter invaders i.e. angry older brother. Brandon eventually became so proficient with a butter knife that he was able to unlock the door (until it broke) with a wire hanger and scrape the drawer shut using the knife as a lever along its' edge.
Don't make the mistake of underestimating that flimsy, laminate drawer. Once the lock broke from too much intercourse with the hanger, the drawer was my last line of defense. It served me well time and time again from the age of five through seventeen years old. Pulling the drawer open bought you roughly thirty seconds should you become the unwitting victim of a bathroom break-in. That was enough to A) leap from the bathtub and grab a towel B) yank up your pants and flush.
Brandon never played favorites. Everyone suffered the indignity of a bathroom break-in. It was best not to fight back. I learned that the hard way when he pinned me to the floor, knobby knees grinding my shoulders into the nubby, blue carpet. He pinched my nose until I was forced to breathe. When I gasped desperately for air he spit a slimey loagie in my gaping mouth. After making his deposit, he clamped a dirty hand over my lips to make me swallow because it was too disgusting to let slip and slide across my horrified tongue. Submission was survival.
With no Dad to administer the stern that-may-fly-with-your-mother-but-I-will-kick-your-ass discipline, an essential ingredient in all two parent families, Brandon shouldered the brunt of the divorce burden. Nine years old at the time, he was regularly left home, charged with the weighty responsibility of caring for me, my younger brothers Jordan and Shaun, a newborn at the time of the divorce.
Many was the night Brandon, a future electrician, would steal outside after Mom left for work and flip the circuit breaker, plunging the home into inky darkness. The kind of blackout dark where you can stick your hand in front of your face, wiggle your fingers and not see a thing. I'd be reading contendedly, lost in the world of Ramona Quimby or envisioning myself a member of The Babysitters Club when the lights would snap out.
After the first terrifying three or four incidents, I learned it was best to quickly scuttle to a hiding spot and hold my breath. That's because Brandon, for added kicks, would stalk the house, alternately narrating his movements in menacing tones, then saying nothing. I always preferred the narrating. At least I had a read on him, could monitor his movements. The silence was heart stopping. The quiet would invade my body like germs, clang through my nervous system until I couldn't take another second of not knowing. But when the narrating would start up again, I'd long for silence.
"Perhaps I should use this butcher knife to stalk my prey" he'd say. The slow squeal of the silverware drawer sliding open would assault my ears like fingernails on a chalkboard. Heart pounding in my ears, I'd stop breathing, straining to hear his next move.
"Aha! I've found my weapon and now I must sharpen it." The chilling scrapes of metal on metal would zing down the hallway and crash into my six year brain. I'd clutch my knees tightly to my chest and wait anxiously for hours until he gave up or I fell asleep. With no adult on premises, anarchy reigned supreme. And so it was in The Butler household.
Dad would call every now and again. But a telephone conversation with a child is like pulling teeth.
"How are you?"
"Fine."
"What did you learn in school today?"
"Nothing."
"Are you being a good girl?"
"I guess so."
"Is your slut Mom still dating that asshole?"
"I don't know."
On three or four occasions in the first decade of my life, we'd pile into the car and Mom would drive the seven hours to New Mexico to dump us off at Dad's apartment. I vividly remember one extended summer visit in particular because that was the trip Brandon peed on me. It's not the kind of thing one easily forgets.
I was happily playing Barbies at the base of the giant oak tree in the courtyard of the dusty complex Dad called home. Strangely, I shivered then realized why. It was raining. Fat raindrops had struck my head right in the part of my hair sending chills rippling down my neck and back. Rain? I looked up from braiding Barbie's hair in confusion. I scrutinized the blue sky, felt the arid summer air baking my skin.
"Ha Ha!" In pure Nelson from The Simpsons fashion, Brandon, hiding among the tree branches, proceeded to introduce me to a Golden Shower. Something I do not go in for, then or now.
Overall the Dad trips were okay. Dad's an excellent camper so there were good times scattered between the frequent reminders that Mom is a slut that ruined the family. Ultimately though, it jars the soul to see your Dad stripped of the womanly presence in his life. His stark apartment, painful to the eye. Valiant yet tasteless attempts at home cooking. It's never fun to see a parent cry. Baring witness to a parent's pain is an emotionally scarring ordeal. Your soft place to fall is now a rocky road pockmarked with potholes of despair. The world becomes a scary place full of pain. You don't believe in your own future. You don't know what love between a man and a woman looks like. Your heart begins to harden, eventually developing an impenetrable veneer because you know you have to take care of yourself. Who wants to bother the guy who cries? Can the guy who cries really be my go-to guy?
As for dad? He was the guy called "Dad" that lived in a tiny apartment in a vast wasteland known as Gallup, New Mexico where groups of tumbleweeds roamed the streets like gangs. When you're five, you don't give semantics like location much consideration. When Dad had lived at home, he didn't really. He had a job that forced him to travel to Wyoming from Utah much of the time. He also spent a significant chunk of his twenties working the graveyard shift.
In the grand scheme of my 5-year-old life, on the surface everything was status quo. Except of course, now we were dirt poor. But when you're that young, you don't know you're poor. It's your normal. You learn what poor means soon enough. When you're issued the bright pink school lunch ticket instead of the usual white. When all the kids asked why Monica has a different color, the same asshole that picks his nose and eats it pulled his finger from his nose long enough to shout "cuz that's what the poor kids get!"
My big brother taught me how to flip the bird that year.
My parents were both raised in the Mormon church. In case you haven't heard, the Mormons are a strict bunch. The church is run by a posse of old, white guys. The leader, he's called the Prophet. This cat claims to get regular visits from his pal God. Twice a year the Prophet and his cronies throws a big bash called General Conference to inform God fearing church members what The Big Guy has on his mind. Thousands of members from across the globe converge on the Conference Center in Salt Lake City to hear the latest.
Sometimes the Prophet says God lectures on the importance of not drinking and smoking. Other times the Big Guy is fired up about all the sex going on between The Unmarrieds. Recently the Prophet announced God was pretty pissed about the latest fashions. As I understand it, he wasn't real impressed with the spring collection and the re-emergance of Daisy Dukes, bare midriffs. Apparently God prefers his women in a Classic Cut Gap pant over a hiphugger. God was also bagging on those pesky gays... always with wanting the Civil Rights and such.
As you can well imagine, God pops vessels over the abomination that is adultery. No ifs, ands, or buts. So when my Mom strayed from the homestead, the Mormon church told her to pack her bags, she was finished. It's called excommunication. So like Nixon a few years before, my family left our little Mormon community, heads hanging amid the shameful scandal.
Mom settled in a modest split-level in the heart of another equally Mormon neighborhood and Dad headed for the hills. Of New Mexico. Mom, newly single at 28 and a mother of four, did what I imagine most women forced by pregnancy into marriage might do. She bleached her hair, bought a sports car and began dating a high school kid.
In the beginning, my chest puffed with pride when Mom arrived to pick me up from school in the shiny, midnight blue Camaro. As I matured and classmates valiantly took it upon themselves to educate me about terms like trailer trash and slut, I pretended I didn't see the tanned blonde woman roaring down the street, frosted and hairsprayed bangs winning the war against the wild wind whipping the rest of her hair like a tumbleweed. Def Leppard, Whitesnake and Skid Rowe often blared from vibrating car speakers. Sure it was cool that Mom liked the same music as me. I never had to deal with an outraged parent yelling at me to turn down that Aerosmith fellow, I'm trying to hear Celine Dion!
Then I went to Katie's house after school one day. The aroma of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies greeted me as we entered the professionally decorated living room, a stark contrast to the the empty living room currently mocking me at my own home.
"Oh! I didn't know you were moving" church members toiling for a thumbs up from The Big Guy would ask on their occasional pilgrimages to 'the bad house'. They'd ring the doorbell clutching plates of brownies, rice krispie treats, casseroles, determined to convince us to come to church next Sunday.
"No. We just moved the old furniture downstairs to the family room. The new couch is on layaway." The first time my Mom used this line I actually got excited, my mind envisioning a butter soft leather sectional like the one at Katie's house. With a built in recliner! And cup holders in the arm rests! And a fold out bed built right under the cushions!
"What kind of couch are we getting Mom! Huh? Mom! Mom! Is it a leather one?" My incessant questioning was answered with The Look. The dreaded look. The Look that speaks a thousand words. Words like trouble with a capital T. Grounded! Idiot! Spanking! Wooden Spoon! I Will Kill You When We Are Alone!
After the safety net of company departed my mother exploded.
"Have you lost your goddamn mind? We can't afford a new couch!"
"Oh." I soon learned the imaginary layaway couch was a ruse to keep nosey neighbors from the embarassing knowledge that we couldn't afford a new couch. Lesson number two in my young life that not having money is a shameful condition in which to find oneself.
We lived in a fairly middle class neighborhood. The exterior of 1278 North 685 West was representable. Well, mostly representable with the exception of the tattered sheet that languished in my brother's window in lieu of a curtain. At first glance we could blend in with the respectable, god fearing, two parent families on the block, mostly due to the impeccable condition of the front yard. Mom was born with the odd combination of a love for motorcycles and a green thumb. She can plant trees and flowers like nobody's business. She did and still does landscaping better than most professionals.
Mom may have been on good terms with a trowel and a shovel, but had yet to make the acquaintance of a hammer and a screwdriver. Therefore, inside the house was another story. Doors hung haphazardly in frames. the plastic runner Mom had tacked down the length of the hallway, in a futile effort to preserve the carpet, was peeling up like sunburned skin. Drawers were broken. Walls in the basement looked like swish cheese and provided the perfect vantage point from which one could spy on the makeout sessions of horny friends from our teenage years. The pantry door had to be gently coaxed into movement like an elderly man after a stroke. The door knob to the ONLY bathroom in the house would turn endlessly in its' hole, broken from too many bathroom break-ins with butter knives and straightened wire hangers.
It got so the person bravely attempting any sort of personal bathroom business would pull open the hairbrush drawer, cleverly leveraging it against the door. The drawer sat catty corner to the bathroom door and would briefly deter invaders i.e. angry older brother. Brandon eventually became so proficient with a butter knife that he was able to unlock the door (until it broke) with a wire hanger and scrape the drawer shut using the knife as a lever along its' edge.
Don't make the mistake of underestimating that flimsy, laminate drawer. Once the lock broke from too much intercourse with the hanger, the drawer was my last line of defense. It served me well time and time again from the age of five through seventeen years old. Pulling the drawer open bought you roughly thirty seconds should you become the unwitting victim of a bathroom break-in. That was enough to A) leap from the bathtub and grab a towel B) yank up your pants and flush.
Brandon never played favorites. Everyone suffered the indignity of a bathroom break-in. It was best not to fight back. I learned that the hard way when he pinned me to the floor, knobby knees grinding my shoulders into the nubby, blue carpet. He pinched my nose until I was forced to breathe. When I gasped desperately for air he spit a slimey loagie in my gaping mouth. After making his deposit, he clamped a dirty hand over my lips to make me swallow because it was too disgusting to let slip and slide across my horrified tongue. Submission was survival.
With no Dad to administer the stern that-may-fly-with-your-mother-but-I-will-kick-your-ass discipline, an essential ingredient in all two parent families, Brandon shouldered the brunt of the divorce burden. Nine years old at the time, he was regularly left home, charged with the weighty responsibility of caring for me, my younger brothers Jordan and Shaun, a newborn at the time of the divorce.
Many was the night Brandon, a future electrician, would steal outside after Mom left for work and flip the circuit breaker, plunging the home into inky darkness. The kind of blackout dark where you can stick your hand in front of your face, wiggle your fingers and not see a thing. I'd be reading contendedly, lost in the world of Ramona Quimby or envisioning myself a member of The Babysitters Club when the lights would snap out.
After the first terrifying three or four incidents, I learned it was best to quickly scuttle to a hiding spot and hold my breath. That's because Brandon, for added kicks, would stalk the house, alternately narrating his movements in menacing tones, then saying nothing. I always preferred the narrating. At least I had a read on him, could monitor his movements. The silence was heart stopping. The quiet would invade my body like germs, clang through my nervous system until I couldn't take another second of not knowing. But when the narrating would start up again, I'd long for silence.
"Perhaps I should use this butcher knife to stalk my prey" he'd say. The slow squeal of the silverware drawer sliding open would assault my ears like fingernails on a chalkboard. Heart pounding in my ears, I'd stop breathing, straining to hear his next move.
"Aha! I've found my weapon and now I must sharpen it." The chilling scrapes of metal on metal would zing down the hallway and crash into my six year brain. I'd clutch my knees tightly to my chest and wait anxiously for hours until he gave up or I fell asleep. With no adult on premises, anarchy reigned supreme. And so it was in The Butler household.
Dad would call every now and again. But a telephone conversation with a child is like pulling teeth.
"How are you?"
"Fine."
"What did you learn in school today?"
"Nothing."
"Are you being a good girl?"
"I guess so."
"Is your slut Mom still dating that asshole?"
"I don't know."
On three or four occasions in the first decade of my life, we'd pile into the car and Mom would drive the seven hours to New Mexico to dump us off at Dad's apartment. I vividly remember one extended summer visit in particular because that was the trip Brandon peed on me. It's not the kind of thing one easily forgets.
I was happily playing Barbies at the base of the giant oak tree in the courtyard of the dusty complex Dad called home. Strangely, I shivered then realized why. It was raining. Fat raindrops had struck my head right in the part of my hair sending chills rippling down my neck and back. Rain? I looked up from braiding Barbie's hair in confusion. I scrutinized the blue sky, felt the arid summer air baking my skin.
"Ha Ha!" In pure Nelson from The Simpsons fashion, Brandon, hiding among the tree branches, proceeded to introduce me to a Golden Shower. Something I do not go in for, then or now.
Overall the Dad trips were okay. Dad's an excellent camper so there were good times scattered between the frequent reminders that Mom is a slut that ruined the family. Ultimately though, it jars the soul to see your Dad stripped of the womanly presence in his life. His stark apartment, painful to the eye. Valiant yet tasteless attempts at home cooking. It's never fun to see a parent cry. Baring witness to a parent's pain is an emotionally scarring ordeal. Your soft place to fall is now a rocky road pockmarked with potholes of despair. The world becomes a scary place full of pain. You don't believe in your own future. You don't know what love between a man and a woman looks like. Your heart begins to harden, eventually developing an impenetrable veneer because you know you have to take care of yourself. Who wants to bother the guy who cries? Can the guy who cries really be my go-to guy?
Reader Comments (26)
Just thought I would share!
Jen
If you believe in God then you believe him in. You don't have to be part of an organized religion to believe.
Mama - You rock. Good for you that you reclaimed a part of your youth. My mother married young, and is still reclaiming her youth. I think it's awesome that you had a bike, that you bleached your hair and that you listened to the music you liked. There is nothing worse than fitting into the mould your surrounding society creates for you. Being yourself is amazing - Especially if you're the "black sheep" in the community. It takes strength and courage.
But, you didn't let your kids suffer, which I also admire. When you needed to pay for a Christmas you sold your bike. To me, that is the definition of motherhood. You don't have to loose yourself to be a mother, but there are sacrifices to be made at times, and you made them.
And also, kudos to you on not trash talking your ex. My mother is the same, and just like Monica, it broke my heart to hear my dad tell me how horrible my mother was. Those who talk trash are usually the ones who are horrible.
I think you rock!
P.S. Monica - I have done nothing today but read from your site. Your chapters have had me weeping and cackling hysterically - In my mind, that is the definition of an amazing writer.
The first time my Mom used this line I actually got excited, my mind envisioning a butter soft leather sectional like the one at Katie's house.
Cleary what has not killed you has made you stronger and thanks to your amazing talent at a story teller, this is the BEST stuff I've read since...well...this morning when I died laughing through the horror (so to speak) of mother's nose job. Monica, your living color accounts of Brandon's mischievous deeds...body fluids, blackout stalkings and bathroom break-ins testify to a childhood most would shudder to recall much less share. Perhaps therein is a lesson: Those who can, write, and those who can't write, read. Some of the best therapy I have ever had came as a direct result of reading the honest blogs such as your own...We are not alone. Thanks for your great stories.
Dont want to be harsh here, but this isn't a funny story. You normalized abusive behavior to survive, but clearly you were not in a good situation. Living in fear and not being protected has a profound effect into adulthood. Dating a high school student as a 27 year old is not ok. This is not small stuff Monica, it's the kind of stuff that stays with you into adulthood. There was no responsible adult here to protect you and they failed you. Being poor or in a single parent household does not excuse abuse and neglect. Despite it all, you survived and I hope you know how much it took in a situation like this. And I had no idea Mormons were so vindictive, it's terrible to victimize the kids for the actions of adults. Seriously fucked.