Chapter Twenty Too Bad It’s Really a Rolodex Life and Not Exactly the Coveted Rolex Life
Chapter Twenty
Too Bad It’s Really a Rolodex Life and Not Exactly the
Coveted Rolex Life
“Dime con quién
andas y te diré quién eres.” --- dictó
from the Latin
A rough translation
of the saw: “Tell me with whom you walk
and I’ll tell you who … you are.”
So ended that summer.
Just another mother – fucking stretch of warmer weather this one, too,
had been and not at all the fun – filled and relaxed one that it had begun as
in mid May or that I had promised myself at the beginning of June I could still
crank out for Mirzah, Zane and Jesse.
School again, Kate Mitchell again, and now Mirzah was in the third grade
and Ms. Majilton his teacher; Jesse started the fourth grade with Ms. Médy, and
Zane was finishing his elementary years by beginning his sixth grade level with
Ms. Schwartzkopf. I had my hands full
with single parenting such as it now had essentially become, so was postponing
job – hunting a little bit longer. Of
course, still I was operating on a superficial and day – to – day basis as if
life on Othello Drive would soon be restored and, silently and so wrongfully,
let the Truemaier Boys function that way, too.
Two more mistakes of mine ...
Before
anybody could catch their collective breath after the flurry of the activities
at the start of the school year and dive into the swim of things in any
semblance of a regular rhythm, Ms. Schwartzkopf’s father suddenly passed away
down near a small town called Winterset, the county seat of the covered
bridges’ territory,
Ms.
Stuart, that I would be happy to take Zane and up to four other sixth graders
in the Shitbox Dodge wagon down to Winterset, a distance of about 75 miles and
1½ hours each way, to their teacher’s dad’s funeral. Zane, at his age then of eight, had only
previously ever been to his Grandma Detanimod’s funeral but at which event he
may have been a bit distracted by all of the relatives’ mourning
machinations. That is, a lot of us
people familiar to him there were crying a lot!
I thought here, with this sixth grade thing, – here was a situation
somewhat removed, a little further away emotionally, so that maybe Zane would
have a not – so – distracted, educational opportunity to observe how some folks
honored their now newly made Ancestors.
I
forgot, or did not take into account, that Ethan, Zane’s contemporary in the
previous autumn’s multiple clandestine cigarette – smoking rendezvous, would no
doubt jump at a chance to miss school –– and yet not formally be counted as
absent. And that he most certainly did
do, too. Very soon after Ethan’s hand
shot up when the question of who’d like to go was asked, there was a whole
passel of sixth graders following suit, none of them wanting to attend out of
instructive benefit or honoring the dead’s living but, fairly clearly, because
it meant a free day with free food, all with a free ride. All smart kids. No dummies here! With parents’ signed permissions off we
trekked. Actually, the day would have
been one completely transpired without a hitch, even with Ethan along leading
the gang so to speak, if it hadn’t’ve
been for the pungently strong smell of rubber emanating from under the
dashboard and out into the station wagon’s interior. On the way home just north of
All
in all, that too, turned into a learning experience for the kids because we
stopped in the yard of a farmhouse close by to the roadway; and all five sixth
– graders watched me figure out what would now be the safest course for getting
them all back those last 19 miles to school where their parents were waiting
for them. Without the wagon catching on
fire or, probably as dangerous, our all being stranded out on the open highway.
As
it was, their former teacher in the fifth grade, Mr. Pewter, motored down to
pick them all up in his own vehicle.
While we waited, the elderly couple whose home we’d temporarily
commandeered most graciously hosted us and seemed genuinely happy to be helping
out young kids. It did not appear to me
that the students learned a thing about Ancestoring, that it had, indeed, been,
overall, only a day off and free from school.
But. Zane, the caring, giving and compassionate
boy that he was, felt really, really good about his and my having done this
thing for Ms. Schwartzkopf. And
she? For weeks and months afterwards
whenever an occasion brought me to school and to the sixth grade classroom, Ms.
Schwartzkopf expressed to me how moved she and her family had been at some of
her students making this ‘effort’ and how grateful she was to me for having
taken the trouble to chauffeur and chaperone them all through one of her life’s
most difficult days. Maybe Zane, at
least, learned some that day on Ancestoring.
I am thinking so. Curious it was
about the car, too. My mechanic found
nothing amiss to explain the mysterious smell upon my and Zane’s so carefully
driving it home alone, not even a broken brake hose or some such; and the wagon
worked well from that day forward with no further problem found. And as before with Mehitable’s certain, so –
not – happening late December visit to Williamsburg because the Truemaier Boys
and I all, instead, slip – slid across ice – covered Columbia, at least I had
not played highway roulette with these children’s lives – and I myself felt
good about that, too.
* *
* *
Mirzah
and Jesse were off to fine starts, too.
Ms. Majilton soon retired after that specific school year; and whenever,
which was often, I would run into her at the Save – U – More Deli, she always
admiringly asked after Mirzah and his well –
being, nothing about which, of course, could I tell her – because, in
short order from after that third grade year of his, I was not to know of
Mirzah nor of his welfare. Ms. Médy,
while of European ancestry herself, was married to an Hispanic man whose last
name she then used as her own. Perhaps,
Jesse’s lifelong intrigue with things related to the Spanish language began
that year with her. I don’t really know
because all too soon of Jesse and of things his, as well as of Mirzah’s and
Zane’s, I was to know nothing. But –
then during those particular academic months at any rate – Jesse certainly did
take a special shine to Ms. Médy and thrived right away under her
tutelage.
No
small thing for a young ten – year – old whose father was as far as fathering
went pretty much, well, altogether out of the picture except for Herry’s
purposefully and staunchly perpetuating the 17 – year – old older brother, Joy – Toy – Boy act, which he, of course,
had always purported with his sons. Come
every single Friday night, Saturday and Sunday Jesse and his two brothers would
join ‘this other, older bro’ for a perpetual 48 hours of relentless, blank
television and junk snacks with no animal – caretaking duties nor regular,
housekeeping chores so that ‘suppers’, too, amounted to takeouts and fast
foods. At his, Herry’s behest and
directive to me of course, the every – weekend ‘visitation’ such as it
certainly was at its very, very most – that is, mere ‘visiting’ –
continued. Quite fortunately, the
Truemaier Boys had absolutely no long – distance, roundtrip car treks to endure
for these every – five – days’ visits and, unfortunately,
Dr. Herod Edinsmaier had absolutely no waiting – in – the – wings, next – mama’s
boyfriend or second husband, a Truemaier Boys’ stepfather no less!, with whom
he would have had to learn to work!
–– in order to share the Boys and
their activities, their schedules, their and his job agendas – most importantly
that is, their time! their
attention!
I
do not now know what would have happened if
right then, at the start of that particular school year of theirs, I had
somehow put a screaming halt to these weekend foray fiascoes that were Herry’s,
the Man’s, fiat. Totally arbitrarily it
was. But he, the Man, … actually the
‘older teenaged brother’ … had decreed.
And so, therefore, ... I complied.
I
should have desisted. I have no idea why
I did not – other than that I was not only trying to be good but was also
scared to death – and actually, as it turns out, it was so wise of me to
be: frightened to the nth
degree of what Herry would physically do to me if I had not brought to him, the
Man, his children. Every time, every weekend that is, that he,
the Man, stated he wanted them.
Only
pons asinorum, cruxy thing
though: they are not his children. And never were. Mirzah, Jesse and Zane are my children. For at
least the most recent 60 millennia of Nature,
this relatedness, this ancestral connectedness between the children, the
offspring, and their female parent, er, their Not Male parent, had been
so. For only, literally, 12,000
years has it not been so. For a period of only 1/5th as long as all of those previous
prehistoric years has my bonding and my linkage been so unNaturally usurped and overtaken by ...
overpowered by the parent sowing this testicular and testosteronal seed. What is so odd – so unNatural, as a
matter of fact, with the biodaddee up and just leaving the cave
altogether? That is the way it was before – … before we females began … to piss
off … the males.
And
the weekends. They were mine, too. Only, now, they weren’t mine, were they? I, and anything me and mine including my time
off from all of my labors of laundry, cleaning, cooking and so forth had been
preempted by the Man, the male parent, and his
mother – fucking ukase.
In
hindsight how I wish I would have tested what would have happened if I had, then that academic autumn,
just said no and not allowed this every – weekend bullshit. On one such Friday exchange at around about
5:30 pm – to accommodate Herry’s work
schedule of course – it was left to me to bring the Boys by to the
We
four filed in singly. Space was we had
to; there simply was not room enough for us to just enter into it
together. I did not want to come in,
to be in there at all; this was so, so uncomfortable for me. I could only imagine what Jesse, Mirzah and
Zane had been feeling for so many weekends before this one.
Then
… Taker – Slacker Edinsmaier had the galling grandiosity to state to the thin
air apparently, er, meaning to me of course, that is … that we all had shown up
earlier than when he was ready for
the Truemaier Boys, that he had business down at his car to take care of,
something about books and a camera and a microscope and that – without so much
as one query to me in consideration of my
evening’s schedule plans and most definitely and ordinarily usual without so much as addressing me whatsoever – still – by my first name … Legion …
during any part of his declaration – commanded me, Legion but truly now this
specific hour’s “Assigned Au Pair” (although more like an “Aunt Sally”) of his,
to stay until he came back up from the parking lot.
My
gaze fell upon the brown rectangular box with the black, plastic dust cover
resting atop a copy of the good ol’ big book of alcoholics anonymous –
both of which lie upon the kitchen table to my right. It was a Rolodex complete with scores of
little white cards about 3 inches by 2 inches.
Its lid up I read the first card at where its single, linear row was randomly
opened seeing on this one card near the front of the whole queue Dr. Herod
Edinsmaier’s highly recognizable handwriting, “I’ve fucked cows, dogs, pigs and
chickens.”
Great
god! What?! What did it say?! I read it again. That is
what it said all right, “I’ve fucked cows, dogs, pigs and chickens.”
Hand
– scripted in exactly that order the beasts were aligned. Maybe, however in Truth, that had not been
the exact pecking order of the poor
critters perped upon by their pecker, that is ya’ know, by their … critter –
fucker. No sheep though. ‘Least, none so stated on this particular Rolodex card.
I
turned that one forward on the rod through its base reading what came up on the
very next card, “Several times I’ve fondled my little sisters Kay, Celeste and
Murielle, and I know my brother Atwater has too. I was about 14 or so. No one’s ever said anything about this
though.”
I
glanced out the window and down to the parked cars. Herry still putzed at whatever was so
important with all of that gear of his.
The little humanoids continued to stifle their machine – like selves,
and I continued to flip and read. One
after another. Right there this
unbosoming with, of course, under it the good ol’ big alcoholics whatever. As if scripting this Step #4 inventory, which
is what it read like, down on to neat, rectangular pieces of white cardstock
and inserting them all into an as neatly structured, rectangular office desk
box made all of Herry’s asseveration somehow … forgiven or, better yet, erased. Deleted.
As if the act of performing this ‘journaling’ exercise was alone penance
enough and, therefore it all also came along with entitled exoneration. From that which had been Herry’s real
life. The real life that had been his
childhood and his adolescence and, of course, that had carried just as
ridiculously long, long into his adulthood.
Priestly absolution Dr. Edinsmaier was bestowing upon himself by way of
these true, although never – to – be trumpeted, let alone made – known – at –
all – to – any – others – ever, confessions of his.
Kind
of like when the police police themselves and that judges are lawyers before
they become judges and can, therefore, mete out justice just, well, … just
because they’re ‘of the law’, of course.
It all has to do with the Good
Ol’ Boys Club’s pillaredness. Either the
Man has it: status and clout and
position and image – and, of course also, all of the subsequent ‘support’ and
‘backing’ which comes along with all of that – or … he doesn’t. And the good doctor, any doctor does, of course.
So Herry can, for himself, take care to just up and delete these little
ol’ – and that means old as in historical – pesky remnants of a
behavioral aberration he cannot possibly name, sexual addiction – by his
writing them all tidily down and claiming them, therefore, to be only of the
‘logical’ symptomatology of the addiction to which he will admit: that of alcohol. The “disease” from which he also now avers to
no longer suffer whatsoever, of course.
Blesséd he is, too, in this escape – by good ol’ bill w and dr bob – and
now, again of course as well, by saint thomas saniqua’s “sweet father” james
elppus, all of their excusing words of acceptance and especially their admonishments and scolding to us women in chapter eight to just cool it, to
basically sit on back and, particularly
so, to shut the fuck up and take what’s dished out to us actually, and by
all of those wonderful folks’ unquestioning capitulation and acquiescence
including Varry Wussamai’s over at Herry E’s and Varry W’s McKenzie Avenue
alcoholics anonymous hangout any ol’ time the good Doctor Herod Edinsmaier
wants it from them. He writes it
down. He makes it go away. O o o o, too convenient, huh?
Subsequent
cards I read contained on them no fucking sheep. Nor, fucking of sheep either, for that matter.
That
is: no fucked sheep. Lucky sheep.
Fortunate sheep.
Those
three little sisters, however, had not been quite so lucky. One card started, “Juggern.” That’d be the Great, the Almighty, the
Edinsmaier to outdo all other Edinsmaiers, that
Juggern Aut Misein Edinsmaier. “Juggern,
my father, was banned by my mother to stay down in the milkhouse for two
months. Mom found him with Murielle who
was four at the time.” That was all, “…
found him with.” If Murielle had been
four, then Celeste would’ve been five and Kay six or maybe even seven years of
age.
And
Dr. Herod Edinsmaier himself would have been 12 years old. Old enough, certainly, to have remembered
this episode in his own dad’s living arrangement at home. Old enough, too, to figure out for himself
what his dad thought of his mom and of her little girls’ lives. Of course, Juggern’s own daughters they were
as well ... but no matter, that.
Actually old enough Herry was, and certainly all of the six Edinsmaier
sons were, too, in this time frame, to have ‘learned’ from it. Learned from it, that is, as to ‘how’ to do
it. Whatever the ‘it’ with females and,
specifically with little girls, was. To
be exhibiting this perversity themselves with little sisters … two years
later. If Herry was 14 and Atwater,
who was older than Herry by about four years or so, was also ‘a good student’
of their father’s, why then this Juggern – banned – to – live – in – the –
milkhouse thing had happened two years before Herry remembered, on this Rolodex
card, that he and (at least) Atwater mimicked … their daddy. Fondling?
Fondling what? Groping what and
where? Frotteuristically fondling and what? More?
I
had known this first part about Juggern Edinsmaier. About this particular patriarch’s having been
made at some point in the Edinsmaier Family History to take all of his meals
and to receive clean laundry and to sleep every night down in the milkhouse, a
dairying structure about two – to three – minutes’ stride is all from the back
porch door of the family’s isolated farmhouse.
The milkhouse was no house and never designed to be kept as even an
apartment. But that is essentially what
its use had morphed into, a parlor of sorts, in parlance. This I had known from Detanimod’s herself
having told me that she would elaborate on, “ … when I get better in the
spring.”
As
we know, Mrs. Edinsmaier instead died that next spring. In its midst – May the 10th – dead
she was of the cancer which had plagued and ravaged her reproductive system one
child shy of a whole live dozen by, and one month shy of her 50th
wedding anniversary to, the great Juggern which would have occurred on the 05th
or the 07th of June that year … 1985, I can never seem to remember
which of those two early June dates.
Back during the holiday vacation of the previous December 1984, when
Herry and all three of the Truemaier Boys and I had come to visit, there had
been a particular morning when all of them had traipsed off into town to play
at Herry’s high school acquaintance’s house.
I made 74 – year – old Detanimod as comfortable as was possible in her
olive, overstuffed vinyl chair upside the brown, wooden kitchen table long and
large enough to seat the entire Edinsmaier population at such gathering
times. I sat down at it, all spread with
poinsettias and greenery and gold ribbons woven into the patterns that were the
three white tablecloths it always took to cover it all over. She proceeded to whisper over spoonful sips
of hot chocolate I fed to her, “When I get better in the spring, I will tell
you some things that’ll help you understand why Herry is the way he is. I’ll tell you ‘bout why there was that time
when I had had to have Juggern Aut stay down in the milkhouse.”
So. This much I already knew. Most of the rest I could certainly and easily
piece together from my own personal research and study of the sociopathology of
rural women and their families isolated out on the prairies. For decades and centuries and, as a matter of
fact now, over many millennia’s worth of desperate American females’
desolation. Including as far to the Ends
of this Nation’s Earth as nearly the North Pole, certainly encompassing to
For
approximately the last one dozen millennia now.
It isn’t hard to figure this out.
Actually truly quite simple it is.
What
was Mrs. Edinsmaier going to do when she ‘found’ her husband with one of her little,
little girls? Pretend like this is what
real and normal daddies everywhere did ‘with’ their littlest daughters? Or. Up
and leave him? Leave him she was and
take 11 kids, well over half of them still minor children, with her? Where would she go? Take with her all of the baby chicks and all
of the
O
… I bet you’re thinking, “Why didn’t she just go to the sheriff?” Now that’s
funny. The sheriff? In that county? The sheriff that Juggern, the most Republican
of Republicans, the respected and near – royal community and educational leader
and … well, the pious and patriarchally pillared Bass County Republican
chairman, helped get elected? That
sheriff?
No,
Detanimod was not going to go to the sheriff.
Nor, to any other local lawman either, now was she?
O
… she should go for counseling, you reckon.
She should. Not he?! But hysterical Detanimod should, huh?!
Well,
like to whom should she go then? O … like
to the local parish priest. JYeah,
right. A priest. Like a priest would not only know how to help her but would. Help her, that is. Not to mention the very well – known fact
that in their Fatlantic community Juggern Aut was then the single most revered layman, eldering prophet and certainly …
progenitor … (after all, he was exalted – sperm donor to and had generated from
his semen then 11 live kids and [at least] 14 known pregnancies out of [at
least] this one woman’s womb, hadn’t this man?
Surely a saint himself, not?) that saints john and jude roman catholic
church had ever seen since, well, … since it and its O – so phallically androcentric
steeple arose up from out that prairie stubble of southwest
No,
Detanimod knew she would not be going to the priest. Nor, to any other local psych types
ministering and meting out advice and counsel for daughter – and / or sister –
handling? For daughter – and / or sister
– fondling? Or, er, for … worse.
A
good wife and a good mother just didn’t do that in the 1950s and 1960s, now did
she? Do that? Ya’ know, let the cat out of the bag, so to
speak. A good woman kept this mother –
fucking and, as it so turns out, this daughter – fucking and this sister –
fucking shitfuck to herself she did … and if failing only exactly that – kept
to herself alone, then … most certainly … kept well within the confines of just
… ‘The Family’.
And
so. To stop what Detanimod feared was
the worst she, silently and alone ... O – so alone, exiled Juggern to the
milkhouse for as long as she possibly could before such askew things might
begin ‘to be noticed’, like say, by the neighbors or by other farm – related
folks coming onto the homestead who had dealings with Juggern Aut, the milkshed
people or the feed salesmen or some such others. Or, even by persons from Fatlantic’s parish
or the county’s Republican Party, heaven forbid.
Not
that two months was anything more than an arbitrary and capricious amount of
time and certainly not a length of weeks or months that anybody, any researcher
anywhere had proven to be the time necessary ‘to cure’ such a Republican saint
of his fatherly wrongdoings. It was just
that there wasn’t any more time left that she could keep him down there and,
still, keep everything about why he
was down there a secret, too! Time for
Detanimod’s guardianship of the Truth had run out and so Juggern Aut Misein
Edinsmaier had gravitated back on up and in to the main family household with
Mother – of – All Detanimod watching so closely and carefully. And, for certain, no one anywhere saying
squat about it all. Just like Herry’s
Rolodex card had stated, “No one’s ever said anything about this
though." A really, really Brightest
Red Elephant in the Room, but hey, perfect blindness. And an even more perfect muteness. And by so many! – by so many perfectly sighted and perfectly
hearing persons who, at any time otherwise,
were always, always most capable of
long – winded and very opinionated orations! But – of course: on any other
subject matter! than this one!
Sure,
speculation on my part you say all of this incestuous familial interaction
is. Maybe.
But
I believe it to be what happened. And,
worse, why it had happened. No one has ever denied it. Not that I could actually bring it up
anywhere without the telephone going dead from hang – ups or from someone
slamming the door behind them as they made a very rapid exit – after being
asked about this time in the life of the Edinsmaier Family Household. It’s what happened. It is
what it is. It’s real. Like it.
Or not. And the madam is dead so Detanimod
won’t be getting better nor be able to tell me “in the spring” after all, will
she?
Yet
here it all was again – written down into Herry’s Rolodex.
The
Truemaier Boys were more than raptly still in front of that flat tube. I closed the dust cover nauseated. So, so sick this all was. Again.
Above all, I did not want Herod to see me hurl into his toilet. I managed to maneuver myself past Mirzah,
Zane and Jesse and exit the unit’s doorway just in time to see Herry coming up
the hall wresting some of that stuff of his from the
“Tell
me with whom you walk, and I will tell you who you are.” Or, grope.
Or, fuck. As in, “Tell me with
whom ya’ fondle or fuck, and I’ll tell ya’ who ya’re.”
* *
* *
So. When I, back on that fateful early June 1988
Monday night – late, late, at such a very late hour – had asked Herry to walk
away and to only come back and walk the World over with me and the three
Truemaier Boys when he had changed, Herry walked all right. But he had no intention then, nor ever, of
coming back … changed. And probably,
right then already, of ever coming back at
all.
For
he walked all right. Herod Edinsmaier
continued square on the path he’d always been on. And, most of all, so wanted to stay on. And that
course, the one of no – change so that Herod Edinsmaier with his knowledge and his will could continue to be
who it was he so desperately wanted to remain, led him right on into the
grotesque and miscreant world of a trade in this country and in others known as
lawyering. Lawyers. Attorneys.
Barristers. Counselors. That last nomenclature, that one’s a
hoot. A rather hearty guffaw, I’d
say. ‘Counselor’!
Herry
began, I would have to estimate nearly right away in June 1988, walking with
that singular group of ‘civil counselor’ known as family law lawyers. I say “right away” because from what I have
since culled the time elapsed from then, that is from that early June, to when
I received notice absolutely meant that Herry would have had to’ve walked into
a lawyer’s office almost the very next June day right after I told him he, the
way he was, had to leave us and he’d walked out, gladly and most happily of his
own free will, of Othello Drive.
Though
I have no regrets whatsoever for
telling Herry to go away from the Truemaier Boys and me in order to change
himself, I had, unknowingly at the time, just given him exactly that for which
he had been searching. A way out. A way out even from that very recently
acquired piece of forested, bachelor – pad property he so coveted. But.
Most importantly, a way out with face saved!
This
particular way out would look, for all of time, like I, Legion True, am the villainess and the evil home – wrecker.
After all, ‘twas I the one who’d shoved him out that front
I
was played that June 1988 day like an angel’s harp bringing the mighty fine and
pillared doctor the fresh swell of the melody matching his much – anticipated
freedom. Out Dr. Herod Edinsmaier walked
and right onto his own continuing and well – worn trail; this time, though,
that path of his took Herod first and straightaway to legal counsel. This late spring beeline of Herry’s set in to
motion a monster unstoppable. But he
knew that it would. That, after all, is
exactly what Herry had wanted. And got.
I
was busy with the three Boys’ new school year, of course, and had just returned
home from the same ol’, same ol’ morning foray in the Shitbox wagon to the
southeast edge of town where I’d dropped them all off for their academic day at
Kate Mitchell School. It was the second
one of the school week, Tuesday, 04 October 1988.
The
Boys should have been bouncy and wowed by their particular previous Saturday
and Sunday with Herry. That
immediately past weekend they all had been somewhat freed from that horrid,
cramped space which Herry called his ‘home’ because he had taken them all to
Williamsburg to visit Grandpa AmTaham and Grandma Mehitable. As they had had some space to run and to be
free in Grandpa’s and Grandma’s yard contiguous, as it was, to the town’s park
with pond – fishing and playground equipment, they should have – if usual –
still been zoomed by the Tuesday following.
But they weren’t. They were
not. They were, instead, the most
subdued individuals I could have strapped into three car seats that morning;
and I was still thinking this on my commute home alone. My sons were not at all the same effervescent
kids that they should have been, the sons
whom I knew.
There
was a definite reason for the Truemaier Boys’ anti – cataclysmic spirit at the
start of this specific week. Jesse, Zane
and Mirzah had returned after that last weekend; and Herry, on their six heels,
had followed them all into the house ordering me to come to the den, his favorite room of his bachelor pad, because he had
something to tell me. The wide open and
diffusive space of the kitchen with his and my sitting around the table, a most
usual place where families collect for meetings with serious agenda, would not
do. Our gathering there would have been
too neutral a setting for Herry, I later speculated, and thus far too friendly
– like to Legion True.
The
early evening it was of this Sunday, the second day of October, around about 6
pm; and Dr. Herod Edinsmaier wanted to inform me where he himself inside that Othello
house was most physically comfortable nestled deep, as he was, in that brown barrel
chair and holding Zephyr, a rather neutrally poised Truemaier as the cat he
was, … wanted to inform me of what he’d already had the unmitigated and
controlling effrontery to tell Zane, Jesse, Mirzah, Mehitable and AmTaham – before telling me: I was being divorced. Notice to me formally, he’d been counseled
and thus said in his utmost orthodox and punctilious pathologist’s voice with
all three Truemaier Boys lined up alongside him yet so silenced on their piano
bench, would be forthcoming the following Wednesday so now that I had been made aware at last, that was
that and I should now know to be expecting such a written notification when it
arrived. All of this profundity uttered
to me by Dr. Herod Edinsmaier with not one time, no less of course, Herry’s
using my first name, Legion. All simply
stated in Taker Herry – Daddee’s aprovechar, always – a – teacher mode to that
ubiquitous, disgusting and loathed, bloody cunt of DEhumanness, “You.”
That
said then, he undid his crossed legs, tossed Zephyr off his lap, up and
left. Out that front door. Gone.
Escape! True Freedom! O o o o – E e e e!
So. The whole “Let’s all go to Grandma
Mehitable’s and play” spiel had been just another mother – fucking. Another ruse and not at all for the Truemaier
Boys’ wide open and diffusive spaces in which to run had their BioDaddee Herry
Edinsmaier gone off to the west edge of Williamsburg but to connivingly
position himself there in order to slam
Mehitable and AmTaham before my even finding out. Classic escapist, off – the – hook cowardice
and, as well, the slyly and as classically standard “I, the Man, will continue
to fuck her, the Cunt. She is nothing
... nothing but a little child cunt; she has no Voice of her own. I, the Man, get to do all of ... her ... talking.”
“
... and not a Vessel for the Law,” Buddha said of Woman, of Woman’s Body. “Not only can I zap her of any strength and
power that that Cunt might put together but I’ll do it in front of her own
frickin’ kin, too! her kids and her folks! ‘fore she’s the wiser, ‘fore she’s
even had a chance to take another bloody, mother – fucking Breath! Gotcha, Bitch!”
I
was now again agape this Tuesday school morning while pondering a replay of
this past Sunday night and remembering my initial and absolutely stunned and
numb reaction to Herry’s countenance and commandment – when the front door
knocker went off in the most clamoring of manners. I jolted up out of this kitchen’s study in
pineapples, turned around to shut off the fire under the water and went to the
front room’s window to check out the source of the noise at my door: a fat – bellied, white man of medium height
in a scruffy, dull dark brown suit, white shirt and dark tie holding a
briefcase and loose papers in his hands.
I called out from behind that window’s drapes, “Who are you? What do you want with us?” I wanted to sound like there were many people
present in this particular household on this particular weekday morning should
he be here to try something funny or nefarious.
Women all over the World, for their own and their children’s
safekeeping, have to do stupid machinations like this one nearly all of the
time, every single day. And, for sure,
every single night – whether successful or not they be at taking it, Their
Night, back …
The
burly guy gave me his name, but I don’t remember it. Richard Something – or – other maybe.
Then
he bellowed back at me, “Your husband sent me today.”
However,
it was Tuesday. Because it wasn’t
Wednesday I was suddenly left thinking, “O?!”
And, instead, out of my mouth yelled, “Well, if that’s true, then what’s
my husband’s name?!”
“Dr.
Herod Edinsmaier, Ma’am!” he answered still gruffly and still grouchy – like,
not at all trying to warm me up to him – which was working. I wasn’t made the least bit toasted by this
beast standing and shouting at my front door.
“Come’n, Ma’am. Open the
door. I haven’t got all day, and your
husband wants you to have these papers.
That’s all I’m here for. To give
you these papers. You don’t even have to
sign for ‘em. He just wants you to have
‘em. I have ID if that’s what you’re
after.”
I
did open the door, then quickly reached for the lock on it on the screen door
handle securing it. Through the screen
he, indeed, had ready to show me a business card stating on it someone’s name
and agency – presumably his, of course, although I never did know that for sure. The card stated that he was So – and – So, a
private investigator; and a company’s name was also on it. “Ma’am, just … just open the door and take
these papers! I promise I’ll leave you
alone. I’ll turn right around, and
you’ll never see me again.”
A
private investigator? I had never had
business ever before with such a person.
A private investigator. I was
really stupefied. I opened that bachelor
– pad portal and took the papers he thrust at me. And he did as he had promised: turned right around and strode off toward the
driveway without even as much as a “Good.
Thanks. Bye.” He just shoved the papers at me who, I’m
sure, resembled to him a wordless idiot and turned around and split.
True
it was, too; I never did see nor hear of him again. But I have always remembered this sunless
morning and that puny – personalitied private investigator’s visit to my
Back
to the kitchen I took those papers and fixed that cup of black tea I’d earlier
put on hold. I didn’t know it yet, but
the blacker the better I was going to need that tea to be. Black was to be the overall color of my day
at home alone sitting at my little kitchen table in my own wee World – and of
any upcoming day, for that matter, for just the longest time to come.
I
opened the small batch of papers shrouded in purplish – tinged, deep aquamarine
cardstock to read that this day, Tuesday, 04 October 1988, I had just been
served. I, Legion True, Respondent, the
documents called me, was being divorced by one Doctor Herod Edinsmaier,
Petitioner, those same papers made sure to entitle him.
But
not also me, of course. Of course.
Not also me as the so similarly entitled Doctor Legion True. Of course.
And
he, The Petitioner, an appellation I was about to hear over and over and over
again for just the longest time to come as well was now bringing this action to
the fore by way of his legal counsel, Mr. Shindy Scheisser, whose address read
somewhere in the downtown Des Moines area, that Capitol’s same one which takes
into its environ on any particular working weekday a passel of such Empty
Suits.
Breathing
alone I received this news. Official
news it was, too. More or less like one
comes into the World. Even though there
may be one’s mother and other attendants present, one still comes kicking and
screaming into existence most alone. As
was the wisp of a person at this particular kitchen’s table on this particular
early autumn’s morning … me, Legion True.
Calculating
from the moment that Herry had exited this same front door and gone off to
change, or I’d been so silly a dolt as to think that he actually had had
intentions to try to, to the moment that this employee of Mr. Scheisser’s, this
prickish private dick, had arrived at this same front entryway of mine serving
up proceedings papers, it became crystally clear to me in a hurry that Herry
hadn’t wasted any time at all in getting himself off to an attorney’s office to
begin this dissolving action. Herod
hadn’t wasted any of it by, say, going to a mind – type counselor or to a behavioral
addictions – type counselor. Not even to
a spiritual – type, priest – like counselor.
Or, some such therapist.
No. O no.
Hell no! Herry had, right directly, sought out a lawyer, an
attorney, that kind of counselor – the kind that legally, the heavens know,
gets one’s married self free. Most
probably if there’d been any other
type of counseling, it had come from that similarly addicted buddy of his,
Varry Wussamai, whom Herry called his sponsor.
And his, the advice of Varry W’s wholly independent and uncommitted
self, would have been the only other counsel for which Herry would have
gone.
Because. What else for? Acceptance.
Acceptance and approval of what Herry had planned to do all along. Just as soon as I came through with his …
face – saving way out! Which, of course,
I most certainly had now done – just four short months earlier! With Ms. Li’s Why Am I Afraid to Tell You
Who I Am pornography and with Dr. Herod Edinsmaier’s diarrheal diary of a
I
tried to read as much of the papers as I could before beginning to gag and
nearly strangling on the knot in my gullet that really was my cardiac muscle
leaping up and out of my throat. What I
do remember now of any of that morning and those white sheets covered up in
some pissant shade of periwinkle teal was that they said something like I had
around 20 days or so in which to respond, that I, too, had better get myself ‘legal
counsel’ and set about putting together something a court could recognize as a
litiginous (and not a … litigious …) reply to this said piece of mother –
fucking shit just served up to me. I
should put together something that would resemble a response to my entire life,
the life which had now just been served up to me by some strange buffoon in
brown while I was by myself alone on an October Tuesday morning as the falling
– apart, mother – fucking chronology of shit that it was.
And
this? This I would, therefore, do. Soon.
Comments
Post a Comment