Hasta La Vista Baby

My fun times in Ohio were few and far between.  I mostly stayed at home, taking care of the little ones.  My only entertainment was going to bingo, and to be honest, the main reason I went was that it was profitable for me.  Mike had been laid off for a while now, and my winnings helped fill the void that his unemployment left.  He was still going out drinking about 5 nights a week, and now he could start in the afternoon since he wasn't working.  My little 5 dollar investment paid very well; I was pretty lucky and winning about a hundred bucks a week, which was a lot back in those days.  I was making up for some of the money he was pouring down his throat.

My mom and brother drove up to see the kids.  Jeff was crawling, and Glen was almost 2.  They had changed so much that I knew my family would be surprised.  Glen was a chatterbox.  He talked all of the time; he was a very smart little boy.  He soaked up everything he saw on TV, and his favorite program was Mutual of Omaha, a show about wild animals.  He could name every animal they showed and make a sound like the animal or imitate the animal's actions.  Jeff was into everything; he had to be watched constantly.  He could pull himself up but was unable to stand on his feet.  He didn't talk very much, but it was funny when he did it because he had an extremely low-pitched voice for a baby.

We were going to go to the Toledo Zoo.  The polar bears had killed and eaten a guy on LSD and climbed into the pit with them after hours just a week before we went.  Obviously, that exhibit was still closed.  But it was a very nice zoo.  One of the best that I have ever been to was clean, and the animals were not just lying around sleeping.  Mike went with us when we went there.  But he didn't go when we went to the Neil Armstrong Museum in Wapakoneta, Ohio.  And he also didn't go with us to Indian Lake, the lake the Cowsills made a record about.  He did go with us when we were invited to dinner at his mom's.  Dinner was at 4:00, which meant he could have food in his stomach before he went out drinking.  After we left his mom's, we traveled out in the country to a vegetable stand that sold homegrown veggies.  The county that we lived in had many farms that raised acres and acres of produce.  We went to pick out some things, and Mike said that he would stay in the car to watch them.  Ronnie had a station wagon, a precursor to vans, and the kids were in the rear hanging out of the window.  Jeff found a pack of Mike's cigarettes and ate them.  As soon as we got into the car, he upchucked tobacco all over Mike.  That seemed fair.  The next morning my family was gone.  They never asked me about Mike, how his drinking was, or how we were getting along; I always thought that was odd since they were always more than willing to get into my business.

Several weeks later, Mike was out with his friends on a Friday night.  It was hot out, and I had the front door open with just the screen door locked.  It was late, Glen had already fallen asleep in his room, but Jeff was up.  I rocked him, trying to get him back to sleep, when someone started knocking on my door.  I looked over, and it was Chris's father.  I didn't want to answer the door, but he could see me sitting there.  I went to the door and asked him what he wanted.  He said his car had broken down around the corner and he wanted to use the phone.  I hesitated, and he said he would call his son to come to get him and wait outside.  I held Jeff on one hip, I reached up and unlatched the door, and he busted through the doorway, grabbing me.  He was drunk as a skunk; he smelled like a hundred proof of something.  I was fighting him off with one hand and screaming at him to leave.  I was trying to get to the phone in the hallway, and I finally made it.  He stopped.  I told him I was calling the cops, and he vanished.  I didn't call the cops because he was my sister-in-law's father.  I knew it would cause problems in the family if I did.  I called a few of the hangouts where Mike might be and finally called the right place.  I asked him to come home, and he said he didn't want to, and then I told him that Mike, Chris's dad, had come into the house and gotten fresh with me.  He said, well, it doesn't really matter what he said; he was mad as hell.  Instead of him coming home, he went looking for the man and found him at another drinking hole and was going to beat the crap out of him.  Her dad had been at the same bar where Mike was earlier, and since he knew Mike was out with his friends, I would be home alone. He planned it; I finally got Jeff to sleep and went to bed after being sure that the house was locked up securely.

I don't know what time Mike had come in, and I really didn't care.  I was upset that he didn't come home after that happened.  I didn't know that Mike had gone looking for Chris's father.  The phone rang at about 8 am.  I picked it up, and it was Chris, and she was cussing me out, asking me how I could "do that" to her father.  She said that her dad told her that he was out drinking, and Mike saw him and started cussing him out in front of everyone and started shoving him around.  She said that Mike told him to stay away from me and that he would kill him, and he didn't know why.  Really?  I tried to tell her what happened, and she refused to believe me.  It was all over town, and she demanded that I apologize to her father.  I told her no way; I told her he was perverted and that he had grabbed me and said crude things to me, and the only reason he left was that I told him that I was calling the cops.  She hung up on me.

When Mike woke up I asked him why he had to make a big scene in public instead of coming home like I had asked him.  He said that nobody was going to do that to his wife.  I reminded him that he had done worse, and now everyone was mad at me, not Chris's father.  And everyone was mad at me.  The only person that believed me was Chris's husband.  He knew that her dad had been too interested in me since the first time he met me.  Now I couldn't go anywhere without people whispering to one another as I walked by.  Now I couldn't go to bingo, I really couldn't do anything.  I was so sick of living in that town; I was fed up with everything and everybody.

Weeks later, Mike came home drunk, nothing unusual, but he was extremely irritated.  I was watching TV when he came in.  I was still dressed, including shoes; I hadn't had the time or the initiative to change.   Mike was pawing at me, breathing that smelly, boozy, sour breath on me.  I kept pushing him away.  Before I could react, he jumped on me and started screaming at me about messing around with Chris's father and then started choking me and banging my head against the wall.  That was it; that was going to be the last time he choked me or insulted me.  I had platform shoes on, I managed to kick him in the family jewels so hard that he couldn't get up after I did it.  He just laid on the floor.   I went and picked Jeff up out of bed, and we went into Glen's room and locked the door.  I finally heard him go into the bedroom, where he passed out.  Once I was sure that he was soundly out of it, I called my mom and told her what had happened.  I asked if they would come me get as soon as they could.  They were in the process of packing to move to Dallas but said they would leave in an hour or so.  I would quietly get the kid's clothes packed and hidden and be ready when they got there the next day.

Mike left for work that morning, and I sprang into action as soon as I heard him leave.  I took the baby bed apart and gathered whatever belongings I thought would fit Ronnie's car.  I found all of David's old love letters and pictures and packed them, sacrificing other personal belongings to take those.  I took my records and albums and clothes, that was about it.  As soon as Ronnie got there, we loaded up the car and left; I was afraid that someone would see us, since we lived on the corner of a main street, and call Mike to tip him off.   I didn't leave a note; I left him what he had given me, nothing.

One more time in my life, I left and didn't even turn around to look back over my shoulder.  I hated that town and the narrow-minded people that lived in it.

Get ready for Ms. Dallas to emerge.  I was going to be making some major changes.  Major.