When Memories Knock ... Just Who's Gonna Answer?

Life can be a devil of a thing.

I

Three things struck me as I was riding the bus back home. 1) it really wasn't my home anymore, 2) I don't think it ever was, and 3) my cousin was right ... I really was the Munster niece.

Watching the countryside whiz by always makes me feel a little woozy but it also makes me feel like singing. That was my mom's cure whenever I was carsick. "Just sing a little song honey." she'd say. Supposedly it would take my mind off puking but in truth it was also an opportunity to get even with my bullying a*s of an older brother. Typically, if I "annoyed" Barry he'd beat the crap outta me. Inevitably I'd  get in trouble for "riling him up." Mommy dearest's "golden boy" could do no wrong and he manipulated her favouritism to an evil advantage. Sitting next to him in the back seat of dad's '62 Ford Fairlane, I'd sing Egbert the Easter Egg in August, knowing it would drive him crazy. When threaten to get my block knocked off, I’d interrupt singing just long enough to sneer, "Momma told me to!" How I treasured those family moments of carsick heaven!

II

Some people love Christmas but then they don't grow up with demon rum running the show. I used to get excited about it until realizing drunken revelry, burnt turkey, and presents sitting unwrapped under the tree were not the typical traditions of everyday folk. When old enough to complain I was called a whiny little "party pooper." I remember wondering why they called it a “party,” it seemed like hell to me. I was the middle child of three and the only girl. I was an inconvenience to my mother and only baffled my poor dad who came from a family of ten boys and one girl who was married and living in Mississauga Ontario before he could even talk. I often felt like a changeling.  It was my first cousin, Sheila, who started calling me "the Munster niece" because I was so different.  I like that word "changeling"... it implies so much.

III

 I would lock myself in the bathroom to read. Reading annoyed mother. “Get out here and visit!" or, "What the hell are you doing in there? You better not be reading!" Whenever I lingered too long in my bathroom hideaway, immersed in my latest novel, I'd be interrupted by her shrieks. "Nothing ma," I'd shout back, "just taking a s**t!” My saucy lie always made me smile, but inwardly I yearned for acceptance, to belong, to be normal... whatever the devil that meant. Being the Munster niece could get damned lonely sometimes.

IV

I once knew a man who cut off his own ears, so they say. He was my son's father. He told them in the emergency room that his pit bulls chewed them off, but I think it was a drug deal gone bad. But we will never know. Not much later Geoff was scalped and died in a tiny rundown trailer in northern Saskatchewan.

Back in the 70's his nickname was "The Lil Reverend". He could keep a crowd of wannabe hippy kids mesmerized for hours. I know, I was one of them. He was older than me and so beautiful then, like a golden angel. But he was damaged and even at seventeen I sensed he was struggling with inner demons. I think he used drugs to keep them at bay. When I discovered I was pregnant I knew I had to leave. As time went on, Geoff changed into something my mind and heart could not accept. He used to call me sometimes in the dead of night. I finally asked him to stop, so he did.  Geoff never knew his son and my boy carries a sadness inside him that will never go away. Geoff fought those demons for over 40 years but in the end they got him.

That's the thing about demons, once they get a hold of you, they just don't wanna let go.