Diary of a Sex-Starved Pseudo-Mennonite, Part 20

My dad hates to be around me because my existence reminds him of his profound personal failings. All day every day, Dad prefers to believe he's the shit. In the silence of my childhood visits, my eyes screamed what I thought of him. Pisces eyes don't lie. The first time I visited Dad in the East at 6 or so, he took me to the bar with him and the main side dish and probably my brother. My silent judgement rang so loudly across the barroom that everyone was uncomfortable. Particularly the bartender. I believe he told Dad to take me home. My energy was so profound, patrons could not drink in peace. Dad had not noticed. The resentment of he and the main side dish was palpable and audible in the pickup truck ride home. Now he'd have to be satisfied drinking his beer in the truck as he drove us back to his house (a cooler of beer was always ready in the truck, and in use), very disappointed in me.

Even then, I was winning. It just didn't feel like it.

At Dad's house, I ruined everything with my Tweety Bird looks and sense of right and wrong. When the main side dish and my brother got high in the basement (her age is roughly equidistant between my brother and my dad), they danced upstairs after on air trails of a bit too on the nose basement Doobie Brothers, giggling. The main side dish prodded Dad to get out his box of porn. He was at that moment looking at some on his own in his easy chair and she teased him about not sharing. The porn box was in the dining room under the pool table. It was bigger than a breadbox. Slightly smaller than a refrigerator. Dad slid it into the living room because even for a big guy like him, it was too massive and awkward to pick up if you didn't have to. He took this opportunity to select a different magazine from the box and "read" much as he did multiple newspapers each night, focused on what was in his lap, swiping his bangs across his wide forehead without knowing he was doing it, drinking his rum and Coke. Dad pretended what was happening wasn't happening. I tried to follow his lead after staring through him sparked no movement towards right, instead staring at the TV, struggling not to cry, then battling to cry without noise, as I did back home in Iowa. My brother smelled my tears. A Leo, the big cat went in for the kill. Like at home. Why are you crying, Cry Baby? He took a rational and soothing tone to first settle me then get me to do what he and the main side wanted, which was to include me, to get me to look at what they found so hilarious. They wouldn't stop. When my brother shoved it in my face, I finally looked. It doesn't matter what I saw. And after I stared at the TV and cried some more in silence, tears streaming, Tweety body shaking. My dad did nothing but focus on the porn he had chosen from the big big box. I had nowhere to go. No one to tell. A little kid POW for 2 weeks every summer. My dad and the main side dish quit drinking (and getting high) for Dad's second family.

I think that same visit the main side dish threw a fit at a carnival she guilted Dad into taking us to. She made a scene. Voice raised, "All you've done since your kids got here is buy them stuff and you haven't bought me anything!" I could not believe she was serious. All because Dad said he wouldn't buy her some overpriced sun catcher art glass bullshit. He bought it immediately to quiet her. People were staring. She transformed, kissed him, and said thank you, Babe. We thought my mom was scary.

So Dad was getting what he deserved in a way, each day. But was I? I didn't remember asking to be born.

I should cut the main side dish a break. I mean, what was she, 19? 21? 24? I felt strongly that any of those ages was still too old for such a display. And she didn't know how much older my dad was than her cuz he never told her and for some reason this is the one thing she failed to get verbal with him about. One visit she brought it up, so I told her. (Of note, Dad does not know how old I am. Then and still.) She was floored. A full-blooded Scandinavian, my dad aged well. He did not begin to show grey until 60. 

During a different visit when I was a teenager and The Dish was riding around with me in the car with her mother (as a rule my dad did not take time off from work when his children came to visit once a year), I did the math after she responded to her mother's question about how long she had been with my dad. I am bad at math, but better than The Dish. My parents were married then. I pointed out the matter of dates. The Dish got nasty. She told me later that by the time she found out my dad was married, it was too late. Whatever that means. They did not have kids then, so if he had knocked her up, the child never happened. If she felt it was too late because she already loved him, she's just fucking stoopid (so stupid I have to misspell it) because he's an asshole. Which she knew because they argued often and appeared largely unhappy with 1 another. I think she believed it was too late for her to find someone better in her 600 person hometown. The Dish had a GED and I think undiagnosed dyslexia. She thought she was dumb. She made salads and prepped food at the NCO (Non-commissioned Officers) Club where Dad ate and drank. He was cheaper than a Depression-era widow with 5 kids, but my dad had a good job. He excelled in his field. (Jesus was a Capricorn and so was my dad. And stepdad.) So The Dish stayed. Like a Dog Dish. Dad denied marital affairs when I confronted him. He said he had a lot of friends. He did not. He is an unpleasant person who does not even like people. Dad was then cunning enough to say the perfect things to calm me that he probably did not mean. He took me to a movie the next day to pacify me, after trying to get out of it to play basketball instead. I was the 1 who told my mom about the affair. I didn't want to, but when she asked how my visit was and I told her it was terrible and she asked what happened and I told her I did not think I should say because it involved her and she would not like it, she said she could handle it and wanted to know, whatever it was. Which was not like her. Mom was vehemently resistant to bad news about her family. But this was about her, so she was interested. After I told,  Mom said that explained why Dad only wanted her to call him at certain times during the break he asked for when she took us back to Iowa (9 months after he moved the whole family to New Jersey). Because the side dish was living in our house. I just now realized how similar this story is to my move West and This Dude's decision to leave just months after we arrived, but hang out for 9 more months first, side piece waiting back home (see Part 12). Fuck.

These heartbreakers: men, women, lovers, chosen family, forced family, friends, foes, 1 and all and sometimes all-in-1. They teach me so much. Still. Right. Fucking. Now.

I grew in the custody of self-centered people. Which would have made more sense if I was an accident, but remains puzzling because I was carefully planned. This family of Mom and bro and Dad and Dish each singing Mememememe, ear cupped so they could only hear themselves--each sang tone deaf and alone because someone in their childhood let them down, too.

I just fantasized a future where my ex crashes a star-studded book signing of mine (emphasis on fantasy because celebrities only attend book signings if they are already celebrities shilling their current written product) and instead of having security remove him from the premises, I sign his book with a smile and write:

"Dearest Satan,

Fuck you. I hope your current victims figure it out before I did.

XOXO

Ness Sweet Ness

P.S. I did not write about your broken cock. Because I love you."

Until Next Time, Sweeties!

Ness Sweet Ness