Juvenile Crimes - Chapter 16
'F' is for Fighting!
Coquille, Oregon, November 1995 continued…
It had been just over a week since Tami arrived and I had to quit smoking. As had always happened when I tried to quit smoking, the canker sores arrived on time and in force. I had started to develop them on several spots on my inner lips and gums only to be outdone by a big one under my tongue and a mega sore in the back of my mouth. The canker sores were like a manifestation of what was happening in my life – my efforts to do the right thing just resulted in more personal pain. The spaciness I had from the lack of nicotine reflected my overwhelmed emotions that had accumulated throughout the last year, and longer. And the constant angst - like a powerful mix of suppressed frustration and anger - from nicotine withdrawals was a fair analogy to the pressure I felt in my new job, especially since the hostility appeared from my peers and co-workers.
All of which, and so much more, made it a particularly bad period of time to end up in frequent-to-constant arguments with the woman I had so desperately been in love with for over ten years and had pathetically pined over for the last five years. I wanted the Love and Happiness that I Believed I had finally earned, and I reminded myself that it was Patience and Perseverance, with a big dose of Forgiveness, that got me – got Us - to this point, with her, together in Oregon at last.
I tried very hard to lighten the mood on our way home from the furniture store. Tami went from her goofy act to being awkward after meeting Sandy, leaving her quiet for the first few minutes on the drive home. I put on my best face, teasing her about being so shy when she’s usually the first to jump up and introduce herself to a person new to her. Again, she gave me the excuse that she just wasn’t ready to meet all the people I knew already. Her mood improved over the drive, and she was warm, but not sexual, when we got home.
Tami decided to try calling her sister again while I made dinner. Forty-five minutes later, I called to her that it was ready. A couple minutes later, she came out with slightly red eyes – I could tell she had been crying a little bit, but not intensely.
“Everything okay?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Tami replied while wiping the last tear remnants with a tissue. “No emergencies or anything.”
“Okay, good,” I said. “Any news or anything?”
“Nah…she’s just having troubles with Mom again,” Tami said flatly. She was composed and came over to me, giving me a hug. “That woman…she has no idea what she’s done,” Tami said in obvious reference to her mother.
I returned the hug for a moment before she gently pulled away for me to serve dinner. While we ate, Tami seemed to relax more than she had since the previous Saturday night. She started opening up more about what was happening with her family, including more details about what was going on with them as a result. Her youngest sister, to whom she had just been talking, finally started counseling for OCD symptoms. She had been doing some unconscious plucking of her hair to the point of her needing a wig if she didn’t stop. Her eyebrows and pubic hair were all but gone. It was a heart wrenching story that was the most detailed that Tami had ever been with me regarding her internal family dynamics. I had heard other lesser stories that suggested various dysfunctions, but this one made me think about it harder than I ever had before.
I thought about her mother’s weird obsession with her Bridge club – that was her game and only played with her lady friends! They met on certain planned weekdays, no one else allowed. Then I thought about the big wet bar in their basement that was quite fully stocked, yet I never saw anyone in the family ever drink anything from it. Beer, wine, and wine coolers only, and never had I seen any of her family intoxicated. I thought of the bizarre wallpaper with jokes I could never imagine her mother approving of or telling herself, yet it had obviously been on her walls for decades. Most of all, how very poorly she treated Tami over the years. Around me, it was mostly cold silence with Tami, never losing her temper or raising her voice ‘publicly.’ Plenty of vicious sneers, though. All of that and more of my own experiences with her mother were buzzing around my head as Tami talked about her frustrations and anger with her mother’s treatment of her and her siblings. It all made sense now…
As Tami spoke, I felt like I had a powerful epiphany…it actually made me a little dizzy. I softly said with sincerity and all good intentions, “Maybe your mom’s an alcoholic?”
Tami stopped what she was saying, tilted her head, and said with venom on the verge of rage, “You goddamn alcoholics want everyone to have the same problem you do!”
Play the screeching record needle in my mind once again.
Her statement was a bigger slap in the face than the previous night’s snipes at my father, and it also became a much bigger epiphany. I would later come to realize that - unintentionally - it was probably the most intelligent and accurate thing she had ever said to me.
For now, the fight was finally on. She had another lever to create conflict with me. She used it as a club, with glee. As the fight got underway, the familiar light came into her eyes when a fight got intense, almost like she was having fun. Not almost – she was having fun when she went into a rage. Sometimes she got manic to the point of laughter. Almost like she got off on it. Almost?