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Grrrrrrr


My youngest siblings cannot be counted on for anything except their knack for injecting melodrama into my mother’s life whenever her attention is focused on something happy and it includes me. For some reason, my having Mom’s almost undivided attention forces one or the other of them to a full code blue.

Last June, as some of you may remember, it was my younger brother CB’s emotional implosion and suicide attempt coinciding with Rob, Dee and I coming back to Iowa for a visit and family reunion. This year, Mom is preparing to come for a visit here with my Auntie and the culprit is Sis (aka BabySis).

Mom and Dad uncharacteristically got a hold of their spines simultaneously last spring and ejected both Sis and her son, Nephew1. Nephew went to live with his father and paternal grandmother in a river town to the south of Dubuque where, not surprisingly, the boy is thriving. Sis moved up to Wisconsin to move in with her boyfriend of more years than I care to remember, LawnMower Man.

I have written a bit about LawnMower Man before and if you care for backstory, you can find it here and here. But the short version is that when he was 21 and she was 16, he knocked her up and then ran off. The baby was put up for adoption thus mercifully escaping knowing either of them and is hopefully a better person today for that one act of selflessness on Sis’s part. Sixteen years later, he showed up again. Divorced and a full-blown alcoholic, he professed his deep and forever feelings for her and she swallowed the whole revolting package – literally – but I try not to go there.

It was the perfect set-up for him. She lived with my folks and visited for booty during the week and stayed on the weekends. She neglected her son for him. She gave him half her paycheck – because she was eating and using utilities while she was with him – and she picked up the check whenever they went out. A sweet deal.

Lawnmower Man never came to the house. My dad’s hatred would have melted him to a puddle such was the heat it gave off. Lawnmower Man stayed away even after Dad was semi-disabled that’s how afraid he was. He is not afraid of Mom. Ever since Dad died, he has been after Mom to let Sis move back in. He calls the house and harasses her. 

Sis came home tonight. Bruised and professing in her childishly prattling way,

“You don’t just stop loving a man after seven years.”

Even if he is belting you upside the head and had left welts on your legs that the old southern plantation masters would have been proud to call their own.

DNOS is dealing, but this is not her territory. She took wonderful care of Dad and has dealt with Mom beautifully, but the crazy younger siblings have always been my cross to bear. I can’t do much from this distance and told her so.

“Sis cannot be allowed to stay at Mom’s while she is visiting up here,” I said. “Mom will never get rid of her and you know within a week she’ll be sleeping with that turd again and he will be coming around the house.”

I went on to point out that he is a drunk and wouldn’t think twice about abusing our mother right along with Sis.

There is a shelter in town. Sis could go there tonight, but no one will make her. DNOS’s brother-in-law is the police chief across the river in Illinois and urged DNOS to have Sis file charges. Instead, DNOS called our cousin and his wife and went up to LawnMower Man’s to retrieve whatever might be left of Sis’s stuff. I will get the lowdown on that before the night is over. DNOS was shaky and in tears when she called me. I don’t blame her. Mom fell apart. She’s had a rough last few weeks with the six month anniversary of Dad’s death, her birthday and then Father’s Day.

“I talked to your Dad tonight and told him I just can’t do this,” she told me on the phone.

If I were a 5 hour car trip as opposed to plane ride away, I would simply pull Dee out of school a few days early and go down and take care of things and bring Mom back with me. And trust me, things would be settled before I left. I am a force to be reckoned with. LawnMower Man would have no doubt which daughter was the chip of the Simmering Block. But I am here. I can offer advice – which no one will listen to let alone take.

“This is why I am estranged from my siblings,” Rob said.

And he wasn’t being unsympathetic. Just pointing out a fact that at some point the siblings have to be neutralized and left to fend for themselves. His own mother is now far enough away and finally able to turn down cries for assistance that his sisters and brother are no longer an issue for him. Ultimately this is for my mother to deal with, but she and I need to have a talk, I think.

Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers’ Day


fantasy day badgeThis is not an official Hallmark thing, but today is the first, and hopefully annual, day to celebrate those of us who toil in the sci-fi/fantasy and subgenres of the writing world. I will celebrate with a short excerpt of my novel in progress which is now going under the working title of Sundogged.

 

*Chapter 1

We killed the first one with the Chevy Avalanche, sunburst orange metallic. Remy drove. I was shotgun. The radio tanned our eardrums with a blast of 80’s metal rock to such a degree that if it hadn’t broad-sided the truck bed with force enough to rock the vehicle, we’d have never known we’d made first contact.

Remy fought the wheel as the truck veered wide, hauling us back over the centerline before slowing to a complete stop on the sloping shoulder. White knuckles gripped the steering wheel as the other hand reached over and turned the music down. It was CCR now, Bad Moon on the Rise.

“What the hell was that?”

I opened my door, leaned out as far as I could without tumbling to the gravel below and peered back down the dark road. I couldn’t make out anything with clarity. In late June, between moonlight and perpetual sunglow on the horizon, the lack of streetlights on the old range road wasn’t a problem. But a storm threatened from the northeast and even the intermittent cracks of lightning couldn’t slice the darkness.

“See anything?”

“No, back up a bit,” I told him. I hung out a bit farther, one hand gripping the headrest and the other firmly planted on the door.

Remy put it in reverse and inched backwards, but that section of the road was thickly lined with tentacled trees and swollen bushes that swallowed the headlights like a leafy black-hole.

“Anything?”

He was worried we’d hit a dog. Remy was always in a twist about the dogs and cats that roamed this stretch of road. Strays that people from the city dumped near our little hamlet. The coyotes took in the dogs they didn’t kill, and the foxes were partial to cat, but neither could thin the herd.

“It might’ve got up and run off if it was just stunned,” I said.

And then we ran it over.

The squish was one of the juiciest I can remember hearing. Normally there is a fair amount of crunch and a bit of skidding, but this was all entrails and soft, spongy flesh.

 

*This is an original piece of fiction. All rights are reserved by the author – ME.

30 Unusual ?’s for Monday’s Meme


Stole this one from Alicia too (thanks by the way).

1. Have you ever been searched by the cops?
I have not, but they did come to my high school to question me once.
2. Do you close your eyes on roller coasters?
I avoid all amusement park rides. It’s a puking issue.
3. When’s the last time you’ve been sledding?
With the daughter right before she got lice and that was the last time her little friends’ mother arranged for a playdate. Haven’t talked to her since.
4. Would you rather sleep with someone else, or alone?
With
5. Do you believe in ghosts?
I believe that some souls don’t cross over or they go back and forth.
6. Do you consider yourself creative?
Yeah, okay, I do, but I envy the ease I sense in others where creative matters are concerned. You wouldn’t look at me and say “artist”.
7. Do you think O.J. killed his wife?
Without a doubt. I remember when the verdict came in the principal announced it during classes. I spent the rest of the day explaining the legal system and putting out arguments.
8. Jennifer Aniston or Angelina Jolie?
I loved Jen on Friends and feel sorry for her now with the tabloid stuff. I find Angie, odd, with all the baby collecting. Can’t say either is a “must see” where movies are concerned.
9. Can you honestly say you know ANYTHING about politics?
I wish I was more ignorant of the process and what is going on than I am.
10. Do you know how to play poker?
Not really. I am not much of a card player generally speaking. In my dad’s family it was standard practice to teach kids to play Euchre as soon as they were big enough to tell the difference between the cards. It never took with me.
11. Have you ever been awake for 48 hours straight?
Maybe back in college.
12. What’s your favorite commercial?
Still not watching television.
13. Who was your first love?
Steve Merfeld. We were in kindergarten together. He still lives in our hometown and my mom sees him from time to time at the grocery where she works.
14. If you’re driving in the middle of the night, and no one is around you, do you run a red light?
I don’t although it seems silly not to.
15. Do you have a secret that no one knows but you?
There are things I don’t share, but I wouldn’t call them secrets or say that no one else isn’t in the know.
16. Boston Red Sox or New York Yankees?
I was a Pirates fan when this kind of thing mattered to me.
17. Have you ever been Ice Skating?
We skate most Sundays during the hockey season because there is a rink right across the street that has free family skate in the afternoon. I suck at it, but the wee one is improving. She is determined to skate like Rob.
18. How often do you remember your dreams?
I nearly always recall my dreams.
19. What’s the one thing on your mind?
I never have just one thing. Right now it’s writing, the house projects and my mom and aunt’s impending visit in the top ten.
20. Do you always wear your seat belt?
Yes, although I had to be coerced into it by state law in the beginning.
21. What talent do you wish you had?
I wish I could draw and play the guitar. Not at the same time though that would be a talent.
22. Do you like Sushi?
Sorta.
23. What do you wear to bed?
Nothing. I loathe pj’s. I don’t know how people sleep with clothing twisting around them all night.
24. Do you truly hate anyone?
I strongly dislike some people and some others are not worthy of my attention, but I don’t hate anyone at the moment.
25. If you could sleep with one famous person, who would it be?
There are famous men I find attractive but not enough to sleep with any one of them. I only really lust after celeb crushes when I am not in a relationship. I really don’t have crushes or attractions unless I am also available, does that make sense? Regardless, that is how it has always been with me.
26. Do you know anyone in jail?
I am sure I have a former student or two (dozen) languishing in penal institutions because that was how my students rolled in a couple of my assignments. I do know a man, the ex of an old friend, who is in prison for murdering their son. My brother, of course, has done time, but he is free and doing (for him) well at the moment.
27. What food do you find disgusting?
Anything pig.
28. Have you ever made fun of your friends behind their backs?
In a vicious way? No. I do poke fun, but I hope it’s not seen as mean. Though, you have to be careful. Teasing is all fun and games until someone puts an eye out. so to speak.
29. Have you ever been punched in the face?
I got whacked across the forehead with a bat once. Does that count?
30. Do you believe in angels and demons?
Not exactly. I don’t believe in heaven or hell which is where the ideas originate. I do believe in the immortality of our souls and that some of us are shining examples and some or – not so much.
Feel free to steal this as I did. Or not.