Who's Your Daddy (?!)

He never laid a hand on me... not even once, well; except that one time when he grabbed me by the throat and threw me against the truck because he couldn't find his cigarettes. In his defense, I HAD taken them, at the baiting of my older step-brother. And, it wasn't all bad... It was probably this instance that helped me realize, being a smoker isn't that high on my list of priorities. And more than the choking and throwing part, I think it was the public humiliation of being reprimanded in front of my stepbrothers and cousins, and the feeling of being betrayed, when it was my cousins who wanted the cigarettes and my step brothers who pressed me into taking them, but none of them had anything to say about it when I was hanging, feet dangling in the air, suspended by my father's one hand around my neck, in the driveway, against the side of his truck.

In hindsight, there were a lot of lessons learned that night, about peer pressure, humiliation, the concept of taking one for the team, and of course, action and consequence.

My father never really had the chance to learn how to be a father. for the most part, we had never met until I was 14 years old, and was already pretty rough around the edges myself, by the time I got there. between me being more of an adult than a child, and him being more of an adolescent than a grown father figure... we were probably pretty well matched psychologically and had a relationship that fit far better into the "hunting, wingman, shit-talking, cracking a cold one on the tailgate - buddies", than the father/ daughter roles we were supposed to fill, and were both thrown into. So, with that in mind, my dad saw me and treated me like one of the guys, and in that context - his response was spot on. I also remember a winter a few years before this, when I bloodied my best friend's nose in the snow, in a blind rage after she hit me in the face with a snowball, so genetically, I think it's fair to say that we have a tempered vein that runs through us both.

Above, I mentioned that we didn't know each other until I was 14, and I was already something of a handful by then. I was never a bad kid... but I witnessed and experienced a lot of bad things, that had a "growing up fast "effect on me, with a side of being incredibly brazen, well-spoken, free-thinking, loudly and unapologetically opinionated, and not afraid of very many things or people... with some pretty deep and rusty chips on my shoulder. The version of me that landed on my father's doorstep at 14, was a version already chewed up, spit out, dried in the sun, and hardened by life.

The last time my father and I saw each other, I was less than 2 years old and a ride-or-die "daddy's girl"... This version wasn't THAT! I was still a daddy's girl... but I also wasn't afraid to punch you in the face or take a hit myself...!

I just didn't give a shit!

When I was a baby, my father was stationed overseas and my mother took the opportunity to run away with me, across the country, to be with a man she was in love with and maybe having an affair with (allegedly). With the exception of once or twice, that was the last time I would see my father for over a decade.

The man she ran away with was a con artist. He ran a scheme, stealing rental equipment and selling it across state lines. We traveled a lot. We stayed in a lot of hotels, and sometimes, something would come on the TV that would put my mom in a panic, and we would pack up and leave quickly, sometimes late at night.

On one occasion, I remember my mom using a pay phone to call my grandmother. She was crying and exclaimed that she was afraid "They are going to take her away..."! A few days later, my grandmother arrived on a train, took me, my doll, and one little suitcase with her on the train and I stayed with my grandmother for several months. During this time, my father came home on leave. I think I was about 3. While home at my grandmother's house, his friends threw a party for him and there was a belly dancer. I had never seen anything like her before... I didn't know there were women that beautiful! I was so enchanted by her, I asked my grandmother to make me a belly dancer outfit... it was blue and purple, and somewhere in the world, is a photo of me wearing it in her front yard.

My Father wasn't able to stay long. we delivered him to the train station, dressed in his army clothes. He held me as I cried... There is a photo of that too, somewhere. Once he was gone, I started to miss my mother again. I would cry to her over the phone when she told me I couldn't come home yet... my grandmother would sing songs about bluebirds to calm me... I wish I could remember the words now, but they're gone in history.

When I went home to my mother, things were different; There was a house now... no more hotel rooms with TV and Skittles at midnight, no more wearing our bathing suits to the laundromat, or wearing robes by the pool in perpetual summer sun. No more...!

There was a house now! It was a house where I had to eat beets for dinner! There was an Almond tree in the front yard, but we weren't allowed to eat them. They were poisonous... Irony! My mother tried to make it fun for us. We would play a "Jack-Rabbit" game, in the tall grass. But there were snakes here, and this summer sun burned more than it warmed, and we both understood that being outside was an excuse to not go in... because what was inside was worse than snakes, poisoned nuts, and burning sun.

The man she loved, didn't take well to living in one place. He became mean and angry all the time... like some part of himself had died and festered inside him still. He would drink a lot and yell a lot, and when he would hit my mom, He would look me in the eye and tell me it was because of me. In this way, he made sure to punish us both, without ever laying a finger on me... but I would still carry the marks!

After some time, my mother would wake me up in the middle of the night, telling me to pack... we were running away. As much as I knew we needed to leave, I still pleaded with her to stay... even after living on the road for so long and the constant change just being woven into the fabric of who we are, I had still grown accustomed to sameness and familiarity, and as bad as it was... leaving to something unfamiliar seemed scarier. In my five-year-old mind, it was the white walls... that was the thing I chose to cling to as being safely familiar.

We did run away though. Not far, but far enough to be in a place of just our own.

"It's just you and me now...!" My mother said as she took me by both hands and looked me in the eye.

"It's just you and me...!

A few weeks later, a man moved into the house. This man, more than any other, would change who I was forever. This man coming into our lives would alter the course of our future, in a way there is no coming back from. Rarely, even in the depths of depraved retellings of other people's experiences, have I heard anything dark and twisted enough to rival the house we lived in with that man. I won't go into vivid details, as doing so would get my story black-listed, and I also just don't want to create these mental images in the minds of others when they do not need to be there.

I will summarize by saying: A child should never have to choose between protecting themselves, at the cost of harming others. In the world we have created, a child should never have to tap into the part of the brain that makes them enact a primal self-preservation mechanism, at the cost of another life! I endured and recovered from the beatings and torture, I endured and recovered from starvation, I understand the psychological torture tactics... I understand these are all tools of a small man who feels the need to exert control over a smaller life form... I understand, and accept that it was my role to be that smaller life form for him to toy with torturously, to appease and entertain himself. The part I cannot get over, and the part I can never come back from, is the Que degras, of the sheer bliss in his eyes, as he watched me become the same kind of monster as him when made to choose between doing harm to another or being harmed, myself. Each time, I chose to protect myself, out of fear for my own safety... and in doing so, I became just like him!

For the second time since we left him, I saw my father. He was home on leave again, and instead of staying at my grandmother's house, he came all the way across the country to see me for a week. I was six years old then. When he arrived in his uniform, he looked so strong and so brave... and so good! I thought he would take me away. I didn't understand why he didn't. I wasn't angry... I just didn't understand. I now realize it was because everyone was putting on a show... even me without realizing it. "We don't talk about what goes on inside...!" I just thought he would know... I didn't know I was supposed to tell him! I didn't know I was supposed to ask him to take me.

I didn't see him again for nearly eight more years.

At some point, about a year later, my mom brought a new man home, and he made the other man leave. He just showed up... Told the bad guy to leave... and he left, and that was the end of that chapter. Shortly after, We moved out of that house and into a house with the new man. This man was nice. He was caring and he tried to fix problems. He tried to love my mother and he tried to love me. We each had our own ways of punishing him for this, but in hindsight, I think we were both scared... We didn't know what it was supposed to feel like... being loved and being safe. It was strange and awkward and uncomfortable. My mother would verbally admonish him for his efforts and gestures of affection and kindness. I would find reasons to be verbally combative, incessantly... and at an enraged volume that swelled from the depths of a young lifetime, of being stifled.

He just stayed, and weathered the storm on both fronts, and continued to try to love us... and continues still, though neither of us has ever learned to make it easy on him. I realize now that we reacted this way because we finally felt safe enough to speak up for ourselves, though not in the healthiest of ways... it's a learning curve and we learn in different ways and at different paces, and he seemed to understand that without speaking it... and also seemed to understand that we needed to just be angry for a while!

As it would happen though, when the dust finally settled, my mother and I turned our anger on each other. I held hate for her, for bringing these men into our lives... and for her refusal to acknowledge the effects it had on us both. And she held hate toward me, for being a constant, loud, living reminder of a life she desperately wanted to forget, and I just couldn't let it go and wouldn't stop asking for answers.

There is an interesting part of this story, which I haven't included because it has more to do with another subject and deserves its own piece of writing, but we will touch on it for a moment. In regards to my "Not going away"... the first man, the one my mother ran away with... the con artist. They had a secondary con that they would occasionally try to dip their toes into... Life insurance! In the time they were together, they made no less than 4 attempts on my life. There was the "frozen lake" incident, the "Sinking boat" incident, the "House fire" incident, and the "rattlesnake" incident... and let's not forget the time they tried to leave me in a shopping center. My mother to this day, pokes fun at me for having an anxiety about being left behind... personally, I think it's justified.

When my mother and I turned our anger on each other, her solution was to once again call upon her con artist, lover from the past. I was probably between 9 and 11 years old at this time. I overheard the phone call when she asked him to "lose me in the forest". In the weeks and months previous, I had heard several phone calls back and forth between my mother and aunts about him being accused of molesting his biological daughter, followed by the phone call requesting that he take me for a long drive in a secluded part of the forest. Two days later, he arrived. I said I didn't want to leave and would rather stay home. Being verbally pushed by one of them and pulled by the other, I submitted to the "Fun Sunday Drive In The Forest" (as it was advertised).

We drove for a really long time. I remember him trying to make earnest small talk about how important I was to him and how special I was. How he has always cherished the time we've spent together... I also remember not wanting to make eye contact, keeping my responses to an absolute, well-balanced minimum, between not being disengaged to a degree that would agitate him but, not being so engaged that he thinks I'm perpetuating any interest in this road trip or prospective activities therein. I also remember very clearly, trying to press myself so far toward the door that I felt like I was going to fall out of the truck.

We drove for such a long time...! Every second of the way, my mind was reeling with the possibilities of how the day could end... Would he hurt me, then kill me and leave me out there... or would he just drive me so far away that I can't find my way back? How cold would it be at night... would an animal catch me? What does "molest" mean? I heard my mom say it, and it sounded bad, but I didn't know what the word meant.

He pulled over. He placed his hand on the door lever and popped the latch. He just stared at his steering wheel for a while but seemed farther away than that. I just sat, smooshed against the door on my side of the truck... and waited. Waited for something to happen, for him to get out, for instructions... I didn't know. I just waited. I wondered to myself if I would run, once I was outside. He might be faster than me, and if he caught me he might be angry and hurt me worse. Or what if I was wrong and misunderstood and ran away for nothing and got lost? So, I just waited... and watched him stare at his steering wheel.

After some time, he pulled his door closed. I heard it latch. He turned the truck on, turned around in the road and we drove back in silence. Neither of us spoke a word. We arrived back at my mom's house. He told me to get out... so I did. He didn't park or come inside. He just drove away, and I never saw him again.

Men...! They can't commit to anything! (Inappropriate, sarcastic humor to cut the tension in this story!)

My mom and I never spoke on the subject specifically... I never asked about it. I guess I felt lucky to get away with my life, again! We carried on for a few more years, tearing into each other over things that would never be resolved; when at the age of 14, I received an invitation to spend the summer with my dad. It was an offer I couldn't refuse. I had no idea what to expect, but it had to be better than "here".

It was better at first... even with the choking thing. As I said, I could walk through any kind of physical abuse. That was "kids' stuff". I've been around enough men who lack self-control while simultaneously seeking control, to comically recognize a man who is out of his depths and is reacting with violence as an attempt at demonstrating "Control"... color me "unbothered"!

The rest of the story is more of the same, but to a lesser degree - so telling it in detail won't add any value to the story.

I guess the moral here, is that the men in my life, all in one way or another, taught me to be exactly like them, in the worst ways, and it took a lifetime to turn that into something good, through understanding them - in order to understand myself. and somewhere inside, I'm still that 3-year-old, ride-or-die "Daddies Girl", who looks in the face of every man I meet, to see what he's made of... and if each one of them are just more of the same... or if any one of them is showing up to scoop six year old me off the sidewalk when I need help, but do not know when to ask for it...!