Category: dysfunctional alcoholic abuse

Chapter 18: Whatever it Takes

When I got back to my aunt’s house I went back into my “cave”. This time around things
were going to be a little bit different. Lindsay made an appointment for me to see a
psychiatrist and helped me enroll in GED classes. For the first time in a long time I had
goals and was given resources to work with. She even took me driving so I could
eventually take my driving test and get a license. At first going to the psychiatrist was
scary, I don’t remember his name but I remember the plain dark room where we would
have sessions and I told him about my depression and horrible anxiety. He prescribed me to Zoloft. I was told to take it with meals to lessen the side effects, but I wouldn’t see the results for up to eight week. That was such a long time to me to feel normal but I had to embrace that it was finally a start. We went out and purchased a practice GED book from the bookstore and I kept myself busy reading and doing little practice tests after each chapter to keep up with the class. Lindsay also wanted me to be social and meet friends so she would take me to local bars and clubs where people my age hung out and after a while I loosened up a bit, but I still missed Thomas horribly. I wondered if I was ever going to go back home. I tried to make a mental schedule in my head that I would be
there for six months get my GED, my license and move back home and start college.
Seemed like a good plan to me but whenever I brought it up to my mother she would tell
me not to put a time frame on it that she was trying to work on herself as well. Whatever
the hell that meant because I knew she was back with Jerry and he was living in our
house. Translation: I’m trying to work on my relationship with Jerry and make him
happy, working on a relationship with you either doesn’t matter or you come second. I
tried not to let her words affect me too much and just focused on moving forward with
what I was doing. The Zoloft did help after a couple of weeks. Everything didn’t seem so
desolate. Lindsay would have long talks with me about how she got through her hard times with depression and anxiety and it felt good to have someone who cared and I could relate to. We started having fun. We would go out with a friend of hers and go to the clubs and dance and pick up Taco Bell on the way home. I was the designated driver
since I wanted to drive and I wasn’t drinking. Finally I took my GED test and I passed
and did really well. I was finally a high school graduate. Next came the driving test and it
was like they were giving them away, aced it! Things were starting to look up. I still
missed Thomas but I was also enjoying having my freedom as well, not having to depend
on someone emotionally. Lindsay got a friend of hers to give me a job working as a
receptionist for a car maintenance shop. I started making some friends and rekindling old ones. Kane and I were talking everyday on the computer, sometimes even arguing about his life and where it was going. Looking back I find it kind of funny this coming from someone who was still trying to map out their own place in the world. We usually argued about the company he kept, especially girls. I think I was jealous that he was just
randomly sleeping with people but would tell me how much he missed me. Thomas and I
were still together, he even came up to visit once or twice but there was definitely tension there that wasn’t before. I know that it was mainly due to some infidelities that he read about in my journal. There was no excuse for it. Kane was one of them. I was always impulsive like that doing things in the moment, doing what I felt good in the moment. Sometimes I even did things to get back at him passively because I was angry or hurt, and cheating was one of those things.

Lindsay also introduced me to another friend of hers, Paulie. He seemed nice and very interested in what I had planned for my life. He would ask me things like, ” What if you could buy a brand new car, what would it be?” ” wouldn’t it be great if you were financially stable on your own?” I didn’t quite understand what he was getting at until Aunt Lindsay connected the dots for me. Paulie was from NY originally and had family still there working in different “operations”. He even had some of his own business ventures. One of them was owning an escort agency. He was slowly trying to recruit me into being one of his escorts. My Aunt Lindsay was fully aware of all his businesses and that he wanted me to become one of his escorts. She actually wished she could do it as well but unfortunately for her she was too old. The idea of it wasn’t what sold me on it. Having to go on dates with men and have sex with them for money didn’t exactly have an appeal to me, it was the money. I didn’t have a car, didn’t know how I was going to pay for college, hell I didn’t even know where I would go if I left my Aunts house. So I decided to go for it, how hard could it really be?

Chapter three: Hell Hole

My mom had a new boyfriend as soon as we unloaded the moving truck. He was a winner let me tell you.  My mom was always fashionable, beautiful, funny and intelligent and this guy was a straight up redneck living in a garage. I couldn’t stand him or understand the appeal that attracted her to him. She would later call him her band-aid. He owned a garage down the street from where my Aunt and Uncle lived. He fucking lived in it. It had no running water in it, so he had to shit in a bucket. no lie. He didn’t have any kids, was never married of course and was a total red neck. I couldn’t believe my mom went from my dad to this loser.

They fought a lot and had sex a lot, which to a 9-year-old hearing such things and seeing
such things were confusing after losing her father only less than a year ago. She didn’t waste any time filling the void that was left behind. I remember fists being thrown and yelling and screaming. One instance that stands out in my mind was a night my mother brought us over to her sister’s house to be with another man, I don’t see how this could have been such a great idea since Jason lived down the road from my aunt! Well he got wind of what was going on and crashed the party. Let’s just say I remember watching my mom, Jason, my aunt and uncle fighting outside the house from a window. I saw my aunt
get punched in the face by Jason for interfering and before I knew it my uncle got his
shotgun out and pointed it at him and told him to leave before he blew his head off.

Either during the summer of 1990 or summer of 1991, I can’t be completely sure even though there is a home movie of this trip, we went to the Bahamas. My mom, brother and I along with my Aunt Lindsay, Uncle James, Jason, my Aunt Ellen, her boyfriend and my cousin Sophie. I remember spending much of our vacation during the day in a bar where the adults were drinking and spending nights watching them all walk around naked and partying. My mother and Aunts even founded “the vagina club” and encouraged my cousin and me to walk around naked as well. At age 10 I saw my first adult male penis in the flesh. We did take breaks from the bar though. We rented a boat and took it out to ocean but of course not without a cooler of liquor. I to this day don’t understand why we kids were even brought on this vacation. It was more traumatic and scary than fun. The sad part is that there is still a video of this vacation in my home movie collection.