Name Game continued...

MARTINEZ
It’s never the violence, but always the betrayal. It wasn’t the knife set gently on the table near his worn torn hand as we were held hostage in the kitchen nor was it that very hand to my mother’s throat that meant anything. In fact all that washed away as I got older, a past never fraught about. However, what remains like a steel pole punched into my memory was the betrayal.
When my mother got out of prison she met my father in an elevator, he was an elevator operator at the time, or she was the elevator operator. Just a note, there were far more elevator operators in the sixties and seventies because the old skanky apartment buildings had clanky elevators that leant themselves to scenes of American decay; used as escape vehicles like in a blaxploitation film, or trapping rooms like a lady in a cage, or killing rooms (don’t ever press the number 7 button), or make-out sessions. Revolutions of all sorts were going on during this time period. So why did my mother go to prison?… Well, that’s all in a script I’ve been writing for a few years now and soon to be “released,” so to speak. As I have done my research I know she went to a rather famous prison, and she did just missed Charles Manson’s quaint visit.
When my mother (who wore her two piece mini-skirt suit and Jackie “O” hat that she sewed in prison as her release clothes) met my father in the elevator of a decrepit apartment building, it was animal instinct at first sight. Or was it? Maybe it was an awkward exchange of two people floundering and flopping about in their separate oceans of misery and one finally got the guts to ask the other one out on a date. Well, soon my brother was born, then I was born as an ‘oops’ that later became leverage for staying in the relationship too long, it was the voyage toward a glorious wreckage.
Okay, there were several bitty betrayals throughout however the biggest wasn’t born from my mother or father. My mom got the nerves up to take off with my brother and me to Wichita, Kansas. She was accepted to a nursing program there and we were to live in the apartment above her boozing dad and his boozing girlfriend. Yes, my mom kidnapped us from our dad but I don’t think the laws against kidnapping, in order to deter domestic violence, was in place and active then.
Before leaving the state my mom got a call to make a last pit stop to the woman who cared for five foster kids. My brother and I often visited, got babysat, by this foster-care woman, and now we were able to say our goodbye’s to all the kids, which were mostly my brother’s friends, not mine. They often set up booby traps for me, they were top pranksters who loved to see my casual tip-toe into disaster. I had once been picking daisies on their front lawn, I’d plop down chaining them together, then jet up and skip to another bunch of daisies. During a skip, I triggered a rope running across the grass which then triggered a steel pole’s release. It had been several feet high and heavy, the metal split open my forehead. I passed out with the glory of my brain shining through above my eyes, like the third eye released, witnessing things unknown. I woke up having a doctor give me a lollypop. However, that evening or rather the whee hours after midnight my life changed.
All of us kids were on the floor of the living room, some in sleeping bags, some in polyester fuzzy blankets, and some had our Wonder Woman/Superman onesies on. I opened my eyes onto the ceiling but I could see myself lying there among the others as if we were flung on the floor, in the battlefield of dreams. I could see myself for the first time. I discovered the existence of “time.” I discovered the “me” without my “I,” they had become separated. My cathartic moment of being a mere human being, a small body of thoughts among a giant threshold of flesh, ideas, layers of realities, I was seeing myself live in the moment and would continue to see myself live a life that I was welcomed to witness. The pole had definitely done some damage to my perception and the lollypop did not sugar coat it enough. I didn’t fully wake in the state of being inspired but rather curious with suspicion.
So the foster-care woman asked for us to come over before we left on our new journey to meet Dorothy on the farm. I was happy to see the living room again in which had been the place my conscious and other perceptions were born. My brother and I sat close on a bench near the front door. One of the kids was given care packages to us for our road trip. She handed it to us as the others looked on in solemn stares. It contained mini stuff like a fold out toothbrush, tube of toothpaste, shampoo and conditioner, candy bar and an assortment of colorful hard candies, a charm bracelet and all the little things that would amuse a youngster. It made us feel special, it was a feeling that I had wanted to hold onto.
My mom made the announcement that we should be hitting the road before the traffic broke out but the foster-woman asked us to stay for a snack and drinks, stay just a little bit longer. One of the kids bolted up and ran to a room, crying. As our backs were against the windows we didn’t see them coming. A bang at the door, “Police.” My mom froze and looked at the foster-woman, that had been her friend, now in hatred.
We left on the road without the officers taking us from our mom. My mom explained that the foster-woman collected children to foster and that was that but the foster-woman wasn’t getting the last children my mom had left.
I missed my dad as we were far away from him. He outlived his demons and blossomed into a wise and loving father. Some things I remember he said on his deathbed, “Jealousy is a disease. It rots your relationships” And “People are parasites on the planet, we are killing the earth” and “You will always be my babydoll” and as he struggled to get out of the hospital bed to the door, “Let me leave. I want to be outside now.” As if he could stop his death, he simply wanted to carry on with his life. The cruelty of it all is seeing a recovered alcoholic dying under sedation. It seems that mere “existence” comes to a betrayal. That’s why one can only be lost in the antidote- a good sense of humor and the indulgence of laughter. Enjoy irony, enjoy duality!
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