Meet the Lites – Mom IV
Good morning, y’all. The veins in my neck are still popping from a run in I had with Mr. B.A. Ware in Number One this morning. I strongly suspicion he’s the peeping Tom I’ve been getting complaints about. When Mulva said she saw someone peeping this morning and screamed, the next thing she heard was the door on Number One slamming shut. Well, I took off right over there. There then transpired an argument of, “suppose this and circumstantial that”, that got me perilously close to returning to lock up. Mulva is madder than a wet panther and I’m thinking I’ll just let her handle it. She’ll jerk a knot in his tail.
When we last left the other strong woman in my life, Mom, she had secured all of the property and served Daddy with papers. Mom had hired some crazy person to babysit us, she called her a governess. Until I learned better, I thought governess was just a euphemism for bat sh*t crazy. It was as miserable a time as I believe I’ve ever had. If I heard, “stop crying or I’ll give you something to cry about”, once, I heard it a million times.
The coup de grace came when Mom brought home my new school clothes for the start of the school year. She had bought the same ugly plaid shirt in three colors. I’m no fashion pate, and I know money must have been tight, and three shirts for a dollar must have seemed like a great deal, but if something is ugly in blue, it’s probably ugly in yellow and ugly in red. That crying did give me the promised, “something to cry for”, a full force slap to the side of the head that sent me to the floor. I was stunned, laying in the floor with my ears ringing. I don’t know that I’ve ever been hit in the head that hard since. At least if I have, it didn’t hurt as bad.
In retrospect, I think that sealed the deal for me. I knew my sister Charlotte was intent on killing me, which we’ll talk about another time. The governess was crazy, and who can predict crazy? Now I was sure my Mom was capable of cancelling my birth certificate. I was ten, but I wasn’t stupid. As outlined in my story about Daddy, visits to Daddy at TackyToo just got longer and longer until we didn’t live with Mom anymore. Living with Daddy was hard, but at least the threat of enemas for bad behavior was a thing of the past.
We didn’t see Mom at all for seven years. No birthday card, no Christmas present, no nothing. I guess she thought of herself as the injured party. When I was a Junior in high school she had her new husband, George, contact us. After a few phone conversations with George, we agreed to meet for dinner. George carried the conversation and he was a fellow that Jackson and I both took to right away. Looking back now, we should have asked more questions about how such a great guy and my Mom met up, etc. We should have known there had to be a dark side there somewhere. But we were just kids, we liked steak, and Daddy was in a low period.
I was anticipating heading off to college, and when I left, that would leave Jackson without adult supervision. So, that following Summer, Jackson went to live with George and Mom in Asheville, N.C. It was a fine big brick house that backed up to a drive in theater that showed adult movies. Every teenage boy’s dream, right? Well, I went on about my life. I trusted Mom, and certainly George, to look out for, and do the best thing for Jackson. Now that I’m just now thinking about it, I don’t remember a lot of visits over the next few years, not Christmas or anything. I know Jackson and I stayed in touch, I just don’t remember visiting in Mom’s house. Strange memory to have pop up all of a sudden.
Turns out George is an alcoholic. Not a mean drunk, thank God. If he did do something that begged forgiveness, he would always make up for it. A great example of his repentance is the time he bought Jackson a 442 convertible. Guilt is a powerful motivator, I think I’m going to have that added to my tombstone.
Jackson married right out of high school and Mom’s parenting officially ended. Unfortunately, she was not able to rest back on her laurels and stop attempting to micro-manage everyone’s life. A logical mind would know that we are given opportunities to do certain things but once, and when that time has past, you have to let go. But, I said a logical mind. Mom is still hanging in at 88. I thought she had gone to glory this past New Year’s Eve but she slipped the Devil’s noose. We’ll talk about that another time.
Well I’m exhausted, I think I’ll go “peek” in on Brother Ware and see how he’s doing. J.K.