Peach Schnappes

I didn't get to see the new baby Jeff very much.  They would bring him in but only for a few minutes.  I was just too out of it and had too many IVs and tubes.  Demurral was my new best friend; it kept me out of pain and out of reality.  It was most pleasant.  And it kept me asleep so that I didn't have to see Mike whenever he decided to show up.

As best as I could tell, baby Jeff was starting to look like his dad.  He had a little golden red fuzz on his head, and his mouth was identical to Mike's.  His nose was not like his dad's; it was more like mine.  He still was scratched up quite a bit, but at least his head had taken on a normal shape.  He was much bigger than Glen had been, by almost 2 pounds, which is why I should have had a cesarean section.  I wondered how many women that small-town doctor had messed up.  I guess it really didn't matter; he really did a number on me.  I spent 10 days in the hospital.

To this day, the hospital was great; I have never received the exceptional level of care that I was given there.  They really took excellent care of me.  I almost hated to leave and go back to reality.  The day before I was discharged, they removed all of my tubes and the yards and yards of packing that had been in me to stop and prevent bleeding.  Now that was gross; the pulling and the pressure on my stomach were not pleasant at all.  But my friend demurral was there to help me.

When we got home, I found out that Mike had left my suitcase somewhere in the hospital.  He didn't know where and couldn't even remember if he carried it out of the hospital.  He had to drive the 30 miles back to the hospital to find it.  It turned out that it was the subject of a bomb scare.  It was found sitting in the middle of the parking lot, and security had been afraid to touch it.  They called the police department, and they sent a bomb-sniffing dog over to it to check it out.  When Mike got to the hospital, he was taken to security and questioned.  Pretty funny.  Even funnier was how the questioning and negative attention had scared him.

So now I was home with a new baby that didn't sleep; he cried constantly.  He didn't have colic; nothing was wrong with him that they knew of; he just cried all of the time, he hardly ever slept.  As soon as he was old enough to turn himself over, he would pull his knees up under his stomach and rock his body backward and forwards all night.  He did that up until he was 5 years old, and when he stopped doing that, he would jiggle his feet all night long.  He did that even as an adult.  It was no wonder that he would complain about being tired his whole life when he woke up in the morning.  Sometimes I would put him in the swing, and he would finally go to sleep, but it wasn't a definite remedy.

Glen loved his baby brother.  He would sit by him and pat him on his tummy or his back and talk to him in his own baby language.  Sometimes that would entertain Jeff, and sometimes it didn't.  You just never knew how he was going to react to anything.  He still cried all of the time; little by little, the degree of crying was decreasing.  Needless to say, Mike was not much help.  He would come home from work and sit on the sofa watching TV, sometimes he would hold Jeff for a brief time until the drinking hour approached, then he would be gone.  I really liked it better around the house when he was gone.

There was a girl who lived across the street from us that had gone to school with Mike.  She had been a nun for a brief period of time and then dropped out.  She kept to herself; Mike acted like he didn't know her, never spoke to her or acknowledged her.  She was very plain looking, short-cropped off blonde hair, and she was heavy set.  I only knew what she looked like; I didn't know anything about her being a nun in her past or that she knew Mike.  I went to DC for about 2 weeks so that my mom could see Jeff and Glen.  When we came home, my sister-in-law called me and told me that Mike had gone over to that girl's house while I was gone.  I guess he scared her or something, but the story was that he was chasing her around her yard after dark, yelling, and someone called the cops.  He had been drunk, of course, and she was terrified.  They let him go; they shouldn't have.  That's how I found out that she had been a nun.  And now the whole town knew that he had done that.  I was so embarrassed.  I asked him about it, and he acted like he didn't know what I was talking about.  I think he was whacko, I really do.

Now it was 1972.  Winter in Ohio was harsh.  So much snow and so cold for so many days in a row.  Where was the sun?  I remember I had to go to the store for diapers and milk.  Mike wouldn't go.  With the wind chill, it -50 degrees.  It was like 20 below without it.  We had a detached garage.  By the time I made it out of the house and down the stairs and opened the garage, I was almost frozen.  It was such a harsh cold that it made my face hurt and tears in my eyes; in just a few seconds, those tears were frozen on my face.  It was too cold to get out of the car and go back into the house to wait for the car to warm up.  I just had to sit and shiver until the heater finally started blowing warm air.  The ground was covered with about a foot or more of snow, and some ice was on the streets.  It was the most miserable and memorable trip to the store in my life.  It was so cold that we closed off all of the rooms in the house and stayed in one room; you just couldn't heat the whole house.  This started my lifelong dislike of cold weather.  I had been in cold weather before, but this was arctic.

I was so excited when I saw the little buds on the trees; it was spring.  The gray ugliness of winter was over.  Life was the same no matter what season it was.  One of us had a severe drinking problem, and it wasn't me.  You couldn't talk to him about it would enrage him.  Nobody could talk to him about it.  I carried on from day to day, taking care of my kids and thinking about the day when I could and would get away from him.  That was my dream.

My sister-in-law's sister was getting married, and we were invited.  We spent over an hour fighting over what I would wear.  He demanded that I wear long sleeves because my arms were "too skinny."  He was trying to make me wear a winter dress with long sleeves.  I finally won the war but only because there would be an open bar at the reception.  We actually missed the wedding ceremony itself, which was disappointing to me.

We went to the reception, which was held at a Knights of Columbus hall.  This was the first formal reception I had ever been to, and it was my first exposure to several hundred German and Polish people all at the same time.  I was in awe.  Everyone was so happy and friendly.  There was dancing, like ethnic style dancing in groups.  It was great.  And I have never seen so much alcohol in my life; every time your glass was empty, you were brought a new drink.  The party was going on for about an hour before the family showed up.  I had just been sitting at a table watching everyone.  A very handsome man came up and sat down by me.  I was feeling no pain; I was drinking peach schnapps, something new.  The guy introduced himself as Mike, and he asked me about myself; he asked me a million questions.  My Mike wasn't around, so I used my best flirtatious incantations when talking to him.  I was really getting into it.  A few tipsy ladies came over to where we were sitting and started talking to the guy Mike.  And then I heard something weird, but I wasn't totally sure that I had heard it correctly.  "Did she just call him Father Mike?"  I said it over and over in my head.  Then one of the other ladies called him Father Mike.  Oh my, God, I was flirting with the priest!  He was wearing regular guy clothes, not priestly clothes.  I was so embarrassed, I know my face turned red.  If we had made it to the wedding, I would have known he was the priest.  Holy flirtation, I have always felt guilty about that.

I continued to sit by myself and kept drinking my drinks.  Everyone was coming to the tables now to be served dinner; I was wasted.  The dinner was roast beef.  I just let it sit.  Mike asked me why I wasn't eating it; I told him I couldn't cut my meat.  My mouth was the only thing working correctly on my body.  He told me to pick up my knife and try it.  And so I did and knocked everything on the table over. The roast beef was lying on the tablecloth; it looked like a flattened dog dooky.  I started laughing.  The wait staff had to come and clean up my mess and replace everything. This time, when I was given my plate of food, Mike cut the meat.

I ate my dinner slowly, and after all of the toasting and speeches were over, it was get down and boogie time.  I thought this would be a good time to find the restroom.  I didn't have to pee; I just needed a nap.  I sat on the commode with my head against the wall and crashed.  I don't know how long I was in there; it must have been a long time.  Finally, Chris came in, calling my name.  It woke me up, but I didn't get up.  She told me to open the door.  I was just sitting there in a numb state.  She and her other sister took me out and sat me down.  I just wanted to go home.  I just sat and watched the bride falling on her butt while she was trying to dance, her beautiful dress dirty in the back from sweeping the floor with it.  I think she was in worse shape than me.  It was a fun wedding; someday, I would like to go to another Polish wedding and not drink peach schnapps and participate in the fun.

We said our goodbyes and left.  I thought we were going home, but Mike drove in the opposite direction leaving the town.  Oh boy, now we were going to a party.  I snoozed on the way to wherever it was that we were going.  When I woke up, we were out in the boondocks at a house with many, many cars parked around it.  Instead of Mike helping me out of the car, I just had to wing it.  I fell almost immediately.  It was a gravel driveway; when I got up, I looked down, and both of my legs had runs in my pantyhose so big that you could use them as a track for miniature trains.  And one of my knees had popped completely out.  And I had gravy all over my dress.  I was a mess.  When we went into the house, I didn't feel too bad; everyone seemed to be in a condition similar to mine.  About 10 pounds of popcorn spread out all over the entire house where people had spilled it.  Someone had a big bowl with a little bit of popcorn in it and offered it to Mike.  He said, "No, thanks, I'll just eat some off of the floor."  It struck me so funny, I laughed until I had tears flowing all over my face, but I was the only one laughing.  We left shortly after that.  The last thing I remember was falling on the gravel driveway again and looking down at my legs.  You couldn't even tell that I had pantyhose on now unless you looked at my ankles; that was the only place where I didn't have massive holes and runners.  I said a few cuss words and got in the car.  Lights out.