Ghosts of ex-siblings past

Although I am unfailingly honest  on my blog, to other people, heck even to myself!! – I prefer to forget some of the details of my unsavory past. I think it’s a pretty common choice; no one likes to be reminded of just what a bad person they can be. Or of the terrible decisions they’ve made. It’s always a cold shocking dose of unwelcome reality to have the past thrust upon me. It’s not that I think it will go away if I ignore it – I know it will always be there. But don’t I have to deal with the ramifications of my formative years enough in the form of neurotic twitches, nightmares, gigantic trust issues, and an unpleasant little condition they like to call PTSS (as if by shortening it from Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome to four cute little letters it will lose some of it’s power).

On Saturday I did a BK (that’s Burger King, to all you laymen. I think I’m going to start shortening EVERYTHINg to initials. awesome.) run for dinner. There are two things on the menu while at Billiam’s house – junk food and fast food. No wonder I’ve gained five pounds this month. He, of course, stays slender and muscular and way too good looking for his age. Damn him and his stomach problems that cause him to eat sporadically, if at all, during the week. While idling in the drive through waiting for the six teens working the window to bumble through a job a trained monkey could do blind folded, I glanced over and saw a “Missing Persons” flier in the window. It was a family abduction – the photos of two small children and their mother who had abducted them. I always look at pictures of missing kids, try to get a glimpse of their faces in my mind, just in case. In case what? I see a similar looking child out somewhere and I run over and snatch them up and run away to return them to safety? Well, whatever, I look anyhow. I’d want someone to do the same for me if it was my Ani’s beautiful freckled face on a flier.

The mother looked familiar and, for a moment, I couldn’t place her. I rolled down my window and leaned out to get a closer look and read the name. That cold unpleasant dose of reality I mentioned earlier? Right about then is when it doused me good and shamefully.

I know I’ve mentioned (several times) that my mother has been a repeat-divorce-offender. Only one of her seven marriages didn’t end in divorce – and that is because he killed himself within six months of their union. On Valentines Day. Sitting in my mother’s armchair. With her sleeping pills. My mother is one fucked chica – but it’s scenes like that, the one she and I walked in to find on that day 21 and some-odd years ago, that make me feel sorry for her rather than just loathe her. To this day she claims he was “the one” and her life would have been completely different had he lived. Then again, she also says her life would have been different had I never been born, go figure.

When Mom started dating Hubby #3 he was already married to another woman. Husband stealing was no new trick for Mom (no, KEEPING a husband, that would be a new trick for her). My bio father was also married when he met up with the villainous vixen. Mom claims not to have known until my brother was two and she was pregnant with us. Seriously, how daft would you have to be to be with someone for three years, have a child with them and another on the way, and not know that at the end of every day he was going home to a wife and another child? Mom may be a bitch but she’s never been mistaken as dumb. Book-smart, no – wily and crafty, yes. My mom’s hubby stealing made her an enemy to several jilted and vengeful ex-wives. My father’s ex could hold a grudge, still can. I never knew my half sister lived in the same town as I did, attended the same school, hell was also the half sister of a playmate of mine until I was fourteen.

In this instance I don’t think it was a happy marriage my mother broke up. Hubby 3′s wife was a tall, gangly, homely woman with a bitter spirit, a perpetual purse to her mouth, and a tongue that could skin a rabbit. Or she was by the time I met her and who knows how many of those attributes she picked up after her lover abandoned her and her three children for a younger, wilder, funnier, much better looking woman with three children of her own. Her  girls were never our friends. Danny, the baby, was too young to hate us. She was also too young to be any fun to my five year old twinkie and I. The other two girls, S and R, were exactly one and two years older than us – nearly to the day. With the help of their mother’s hateful whispers in their ears and their father’s abandonment we had two mortal enemies that slept in  bunk beds with us twice a month.

With Hubby 3′s death what was a strong dislike turned in to a deep hatred that spanned a decade. The girls disappeared from our lives as quickly as they had appeared and Mom moved right on to Hubby #4. S, R, and Danny were quickly forgotten as a host of new step-siblings trooped in to our lives and, to be honest, they hardly crossed my mind until I was 16. (Oh, and remind me to tell you all the story about THOSE step-siblings soon, okay?). Up until that point the only part of the entire seven month blimp on my already tumultuous childhood that had an impact was the recurring nightmares that all depicted the day mom and I found Hubby 3 dead – with one twist; when I walked in and saw him laying there in his old blue house coat with blood and puke down the front of his shirt, it wasn’t sightless white orbs peering at me from his eye sockets but his deeply brown eyes that glared knowingly at me, frighteningly still alive and aware that I, at five, was afraid to approach his body, afraid to look, afraid to ever really love or mourn him and only think of him in terms of fear and disgust. His children and the impact his suicide had on them was the farthest thing from my mind. True to human form, I saw the event only through the narrow scope of …well, my own eyes. Empathy is a hard learned lesson, my friends.

It was during my sophomore year in high school that my nightmares stepped from the dream realm and on to the playing field of the small town and minded school I attended.  S enrolled at my Alma mater that year. To be honest, it took me almost three months to even figure out who she was. She wasn’t in any of my classes until then and was only the new kid, a very tall lanky girl with mousy hair and bad skin. She was the spitting image of her mother with her father’s height and eyes only without the warmth and kindness his always radiated. She was quickly adopted in to a group of similarly disadvantaged teens: the overweight, buck toothed, gangly, acne scarred. It may sound cruel – that’s high school though.

And don’t you go thinking I was some peach complexioned cheerleader tripping happily and smoothly through school on the arm of my jock boyfriend. I was not one of the “popular” people – that glittering sect with too white teeth and moms who packed their lunches and drove BMW SUVs (those initials again! wait, what is that called? does anyone know?). I was well known though. I was very well known. Between my brother’s antics (he was expelled the year I started high school for chasing another boy through the halls with a hammer) and my sister’s bad behavior (I was called out of class at least once a day to talk her down out of a screaming rage) you would think there was nothing I could do that was that bad. But then, if you think that, you didn’t know me.

My sister and I were notorious bullies. We didn’t pick on the usual scapegoats though. As a matter of fact I was dubbed “The Champion of the Underdog” by my friends. It was not uncommon for me to get right in between a bully and their target and threaten themfor threatening the dork. I didn’t tolerate people making fun of the handicapped or the special education students. It just seemed (still does) dreadfully wrong to mock someone for a disability they had no power over. By the time I graduated I had a dedicated following of underdogs – the girl with down-syndrome who brought me breakfast every day, even when I insisted she not, as a repayment for taking to task a football player that had the bad taste to push her down and then laugh; the girl with physical development problems who sat near my locker every morning and after school, grateful that I had pummelled an underclassman that was following behind her mimicking her ungraceful gait and twisted posture; the outcast who wrote “death lists” of the people he wanted to kill for making his life a living hell that wrote me love notes once a week (and threatened to maim Ryan when we got in a fight in the halls one day!). My sister was not fond of these “pets”, as she called them. She will never be tactful, my twin. She says exactly what she pleases and makes plenty of enemies because of it. She would shoo off the underdogs, resorting to yelling and cursing if they stubbornly sat across from us at lunch. One girl would laugh at every. single. word. I. said. no matter if it were funny or not.  She especially pissed Adrian off. Adrian threw books at her when she saw her walking down the hall toward us. Didn’t deter Christina though, she’d come right on up and plop down next to me, a faithful and irritating as hell giggling shadow.

You get it.  I was not the typical bully. I made fun of those that thought they were better than others, I beat up the girls that treated handicapped peers badly, I pushed around the other bullies. I was a fighter in those days, lordy was I. It was all I knew. I was raised in a home where you were as likely to be punched as you were to be spoken to. We were not taught to control our anger. It was nourished and unleashed on to the ill prepared public. I got in to fights with people that I thought looked at me wrong for Christ’s sake!

That was me at that point, when S came back in to the picture: a drunkard, a fighter, promiscuous, outspoken, blue haired, and a subject of much debate at our school. People weren’t sure if they loved me or hated me – the teachers most of all. I sailed through school making straight A’s (except in PE *cough*) without ever opening a text book or carrying homework home with me. I should have been a teacher’s pet. Instead I was the girl that challenged them on their views, burned books in the hall, wrote essays about reforming the public school system. S knew of me WAY before I knew of her.

She was transferred in to my P.E. class halfway through the year. Did I say that I flunked P.E.? Every year. Without fail. I nearly didn’t graduate because of it and I sure as hell never made honors despite my A average elsewhere. I was fond of sitting on the sidelines with a book and encouraging other kids to skip dressing and hang out to listen to my wild stories of the night before. That was exactly where I was when the teacher called out S’s name during role call. My head shot up and I looked around to see who responded – the ugly new girl waved a flippant and somehow dismissive hand in the teacher’s direction, yet her eyes never left me. She was watching my response. My sister was sitting with me and instantly she started laughing and whispered in my ear, “Well damned if S didn’t turn out as butt ugly as her mom.” My thoughts exactly – thanks for being ungraceful enough to voice ‘em, sis.

I should mention here that my whole posse was in the class with me. During those extremely out of control years (up until I got pregnant with Ani) my main companions were five girls who shared common interests with me – drinking, fighting, and fucking (we called them the three essences of life); T.J., Jen, Z, Amber, and Cierra. Each one of them was as mean, as mentally scarred, and as defiant as I. More so. My best friend (and girlfriend for two years of that confusing time) was T.J. – hands down the scariest girl to piss off. I didn’t fight as much as sic her on people that wronged me. The whole lot of us plus my sister, a chip off my mom’s block in the aggression department, were all in P.E. with my ex-step-sibling.

It was bad foresight on her part or just a general lack of giving a shit that prompted her next move. After everyone had dressed (except me, I was still in my torn jeans and band tee) they sat in two straight lines while the teacher planned teams for the day. S was with an appallingly ugly girl named Cassie whom she was pals with. They were in earnest conversation. I was sitting directly behind them with T.J. so it wasn’t difficult to hear S when she said, “Her mom killed my dad.” What came before or after that has since been lost in the muddled memory of the years that have passed. I do remember vividly the way she turned her long neck and flicked her frizzy hair away from her face to look at me as she said it, staring dead pan with malicious distaste in to my eyes. I didn’t react at all. I stared blandly back at her until she turned her head again. I then went in to the changing room and put on my uniform. I had decided to participate that day.

By the time I emerged in my white shirt and navy shorts they were sorted in to four teams for hockey scrimmages. My friends and my sister had  been clued in to what S had said. They watched avidly as I strode across the room to join my team, my face blank and my little fists firmly planted on my hips. Adrian, Jen, and Z were all on my team. S got dealt Amber, T.J. and Cierra. The teacher called out for our two teams to play against one another and we all scurried to select sticks. My sister, with her uncanny ability at complete and tasteless honesty, remarked to me, “I KNOW you’re gonna hurt that fugly ass girl. Problem is, twink, you’re half her size. Whatcha gonna do?”. I smiled severely at her and replied, “You’re gonna help, Ads. You’ll know what to do when the time comes.”

It was true, S was a foot taller than me – a towering girl at over six feet. She wasn’t as muscular as she was stringy and lean. There was something feral about her. That didn’t scare me. Nothing much scared me in those days. I had nothing to lose.

I played slow and lazy and kept my eyes firmly on S during the first round, never getting too close to her and never breaking eye contact when she looked my way. I was waiting for the right time.

That time came when, half way through the set, the teacher was called from the room to answer the phone. We were instructed to finish up our game. Her back had no sooner cleared the door when I started moving quickly toward S. My sister and the five sidekicks needed no words, no instruction and they sure as hell needed no encouragement – they joined me immediately. We pushed her  in to a corner of the gym by the wrestling matches and proceeded to beat her with our hockey sticks with ruthless precision – each of us taking turns, never hitting her face or her legs where red marks or bruises would show. We aimed for her back and her stomach and the top of her head. She covered her head with her hands and dropped to the ground, only whimpering as each hit thudded against her body. Jen backed off and scouted out the hall – “Teacher. Game on.” We moved swiftly and easily back to our game positions. S rose up shakily, cradling her hand and crying shamelessly. The other girls in the class were standing around in stunned silence. Only we six, S, and Cassie knew what prompted the attack.

“She slipped and I hit her hand with my stick while trying to hit the puck.” T.J. informed the teacher sweetly when she asked what was wrong with S. The teacher knew better than that. She gave T.J. a sceptical look and asked the class, “Is that what happened?”

Every student nodded without hesitation. What would you do if faced with the likelihood of our administering a similar beating to you? You’d lie through your teeth as well. Even Cassie nodded, she more vigorously than the rest.

“S?” The teacher asked.

S looked over at us – T.J. and Z only a few feet away, my sister and I across the room, leaning against each other and watching with insolently raised brows. She nodded and asked to go to see the nurse.

S had two broken fingers and a cast as a reminder to be wary of me in the future. She never did speak to me or around me again. I never gave her a chance to fuck up. I made her life hell. We scratched her car, picked her lock on her locker and took her books and left spilled soda in her backpack, made up nicknames for her like “olive oilier” and “fugface w—-”. We never hit her again, but then, we never had to.

I’m not proud of my behavior. I still feel a shudder of self-loathing when I retell it. I was unable to see how it must have felt for that girl to lose her father, first to my mother and then to death. I never tried to understand how it must have been like to transfer to my school and be faced with the walking, talking, laughing reminder of her dad’s final days. Anything she thought about me or my family had been ingrained in her from an early age by her angry mother. That girl did not deserve a beating. What she deserved was compassion. That was something I knew nothing about.

Seeing S’s face on the Missing Flier brought the whole sordid business rushing back to me. I have not been feeling great about myself lately – my cycle is back to depression I guess. Remembering my bad behavior makes me cringe and hate those aspects of my personality, the part that still feels a tiny flicker of triumph at how I “managed” S. Seeing how screwed up her life has turned out – and it has be screwed up, why else would she kidnap her children from their father and run away with them? – makes me wish I could go back and, instead of breaking her fingers with my hockey stick, have little teen angst Betty reach out a hand and touch S’s shoulder and ask her if she could forgive me and my family for taking her father away from her.