The Self Absorbed Man in Isolation: Act III

If you met me now you would never guess my backwoods upbringing. I can recall endless hours spent tromping around the woods building forts, finding new trails, swords and arrows - all that shit. I would come home FILTHY. Mom would have me strip down to my undies (or less) outside so I didn't track mud and dirt through the house. I would be marched straight to the shower and hosed down.

Nowadays, I'm seen as something of a city guy. Those around me are surprised when I speak of weekend camping trips with the family and cutting down tress in the yard and stuff. I'm like a closet hick. You can take the boy out of the country but you can't take the country out of the boy and all that.

So up until the age of 12, I lived in the woods. It was during this twelfth year that my father got himself a 16-year itch and moved out - presumably to bigger and better things. See, Dad (much as the man I have become) was a work-a-holic. He did the 60+ hour weeks and was driven by work primarily. Yes, he said his motivation was family (this is the mental justification for the work-a-holic) but ultimately he was out for himself.

Being a father of two myself now, I cannot imagine leaving my family under any circumstances. If my wife tomorrow decides she is no longer in love with me or is just up and leaving I would fight for her and my kids to the end. I would win her back one way or another - woo her.

You know, it's fucked up when you go through this argument in your head. Like, WHY DON'T I JUST WOO HER ALL THE TIME??? WHY WAIT FOR HER TO THREATEN TO LEAVE?? Now look, she hasn't threatened to leave. The old marriage is still in pretty good shape and healthy, but ya know... don't take it for granted dumb ass...

OK, back to the story:

So dear old Dad walks and leaves Mom, Sis and me to fend for ourselves. Mom gets a job as a computer programmer (pretty cool for 1985) and we move closer to where she works in Hartford. Welcome to Manchester, Mr. Mungus...

Before I get to Manchester, let me say that Dad DIDN'T quite leave us high and dry. Maybe for the first couple of years. But Dad DID get pretty successful and DID support us (and his eventual new family) pretty well from afar. And from afar I mean that Dad relocated to California - where (in the late '80s) there were big bucks to be made for the right folks in the right places. But yeah, it was pretty lean there when we moved to Manchester. We were semi-poor country folk in a bustling metropolitan suburb. And we got eaten up. All three of us.

It's kinda weird how it happened - it's like a blur: Dad invited me and Sis to stay with him for a few weeks over the summer. We still lived in Woodstock. Dad was already living with another woman - someone we knew from childhood. She was one of Dad's coworkers (he swears to this day there was no affair, but it's pretty likely that was how it went down). Sis and her, they clashed from day one. There was yelling and screaming and the like. Lots of "I hate you"s and "You're not my mother"s. But I got on with her pretty well. She was younger than Mom and a little hipper. We were there for maybe a week and we got the call from Mom. "When you get back to Connecticut, we'll live in a different town. I've enrolled you in a new school."

Sis exploded. Dad and poor new step-Mom had no idea what to do with a 16 year old girl. Slamming doors and hysterical crying was the mode of the day. And it was ugly. I don't recall getting wrapped up in my sister's madness; I was (am) more the brooding, internalizing type of guy who is much more comfortable staring at a wall, drawing a picture of people being chopped up or putting my face on my knees and slowly rocking for a few hours. This is before I really honed in my drawing skills and learned to channel anger and frustration into violent illustration so it was all quiet intensity from me.

Clearly, looking back my parents felt it would be "cleaner" to do the move while we were away - sort of an adolescent "trap." And for me, it was probably the best plan. Had I been there during the move I can imagine myself trying to sabotage the movers - setting up trip wires and piercing foot traps.

Sis and I flew back to Connecticut (I won't say "flew back HOME" - not yet) and were introduced to our new town. I remember the ride into Manchester: the shopping plazas and empty factories, the past-it's-prime Main Street complete with a dozen or so homeless living in the park by the library. We pulled up to a modest two-story house and got out. I was standing on pavement. A small patch of grass was pinched between our parking space and the parking lot of the adjacent flower shop. We had one tree. They officially took the boy out of the country.

I know I wandered a bit from the narrative of the previous posts with this one. But this is what came so this is what is. I do have an ultimate point to make with this, so bear with me. I'll get there. Act IV soon to come.