OUR FATHER

who art in heaven ... hallowed be thy name.

OUR FATHER 
who art in heaven ... hallowed be thy name.

Part two added below 14.06.26
Part three added below 21.06.26
Part four added below 28.06.26
Part five added below 05.07.26
Part six added below 12.07.26

Bookmark this Substack blog post for weekly updates to Annie's story
every Sunday in the sermon. Tablet w/decent headphones recommended. 



THE SUNDAY SERMON - 21.06.26
See the clip - OUR FATHER (below/bottom)


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access to the clips/videos.

Part One
THE BLACK ART

A woman who writes, feels too much
Those trances & portents,
as if cycles and children and islands
weren't enough; as if mourners and gossipers
and vegetable gardens were never enough.

She thinks she can warn the stars.
A writer is essentially a spy.
Dear love, I am that girl.

Anne Sexton



The following is an excerpt from the upcoming novel OUR FATHER by Jim Lamarche. 



MIDNIGHT - Sept. 23rd 1972

It's way past her bedtime and even the candle presents a problem. If it's seen - she may lose it. Freedom in Michigan meant something very different then. Being grounded for a month is sheer agony.

Spilling a final thought into her flimsy diary like it's a message in a bottle about to be cast into the cosmos. Like it may be the last message she ever delivers and that documenting this is ALL she has left even though the chances of it ever being seen are slim to none. Pitch black after blowing out the candle and shivering in an early autumn chill - sinking under a gnarly wool blanket and aged cotton sheets emanating a hint of lavender that she left under the covers yesterday; a creative attempt at freshening her undercover twilight phantasms albeit messy. Torrential dreams on occasion. Not tonight but then again - maybe.

There's a scuffle downstairs. Mom & Dad are fighting again. He's drunk, having just arrived and "WILL NOT be taking any of yer fucking SHIT tonight Agnes" before knocking her favourite empty vase onto the floor crashing into a reverberant chasm. Fuck that felt GOOD! Flowers in it would have been better; water everywhere? Agnes and her frikkin' bullshit flowers. Nice ... even more punishing as she scurries to clean the mess in tears. Her Mom gave her that vase. Dad loves to punish, just like his Dad did them and his Dad before that. A family tradition. It all started to fall apart shortly after he got laid off from GM in Detroit in '69 and it was all blame & pain from there.

My older brother Devin is out. Always out. Sometimes all night then all day, then all night again. He and Dad don't talk and when they do (maybe once a month) it's a shit-show. Dad kicks him out. He's gone for a few days then he calls Mom and she patches it up, feeds him a good meal and does his laundry, hanging them outside on the clothes line to dry while he crashes on a mattress in the basement with his hidden stash of stolen cash and hash. Good for a week or two.

Whomever said 'the apple doesn't fall far from the tree' nailed it. Devin is a young version of Dad and he is clueless around how or why. It's the boys I don't get. Why they need to prove themselves to be the real deal. Legit. The constitutional card-carrying criminal mind casting shadows - needing to inflict. Welcoming cremation. Proof of pain. The pointless brother, the woeless husband and absent Father.

 


VANITY - Dec. 19th 1973

We live in Flushing Michigan (Genesee County), near Flint. A few thousand people. Winters are brutal.

I've been told that I'm pretty. One boy at school keeps staring at me from across the room. A dweeb but I'll take it. A couple of girlfriends who say they envy me. We're on welfare (public assistance) so the state partially paid for my braces. Granny paying the rest and she's poor. I've been told they're hot. That said, I'm a bit of a loner. My family presents challenges. I don't want people to know. Mom is mute. Damaged. Speaks to few and only for seconds out of politeness usually at the Walgreens, relegated to a world of cooking and cleaning. It's a small town. People talk. People hide. 14 year old girls are home by 8 and in bed by 9 on school nights (or else). Loneliness is abundant. 

The scent of another expired candle, hoping it stays in the room. Pillow over my head. Sensing terror. Wide awake after midnight. Trying to imagine a future in America with everything so damaged. Was it always like this? Will it always be like this? Watergate? Corruption in the Presidency? Unreal. Vietnam is surreal. Hiroshima, Nagasaki and nuclear testing? For what? Why?

We went to see The Exorcist right after Christmas. My friend Maddy didn't leave her house for 3 days after that. I was shaken but not stirred. It is something already embedded in us - realized in film.

Linda Blair was the emancipation of the young American female. Yes liberated. I've never shared that with anyone. I could get strung up and burned at the stake for saying it out loud even now. I am frightened of Christianity. We talked our way into an 'R' rated movie with a little more make-up than usual. Ronnie, the usher is a year ahead of us at school, just smiling and letting us through after a mild flirt. I'm now actually getting the reason why one needs to be 17 to take something like The Exorcist in. Makes sense actually.

To this day I keep telling myself nothing changed after that. 

FLINT - Feb. 10th 1975

Flint Michigan in 1975 is underwhelming to say the least. If it wasn't for my diary and the music I would have perished ages ago, moving into an Alcan bungalow that spring, downsizing after Devin moved out. 

Paul McCartney's 'Band on the Run' and 'The Air that I Breathe' by the Hollies on WRSR 'The Fox' rock radio every 3 hours. Marvin Gaye 'Let's Get it On". MOTOWN! An awakening. Love the hits. I turn 16 that summer. Dennis was this guy who I liked but not sure if he knew that. Filled out in all the right places and so cute with sun-soaked, long shaggy hair and his mischievous grin. He tattooed himself - a skull. Like, epic man-child. As a young teen I was an item. Makeup - lipstick all politely borrowed from the local Hudsons that month (5 finger discount), along with a copy of Seventeen magazine for inspiration. 

Short skirts were a big deal. A flirtation in Flint that went un-noticed. My undercover twilight phantasms evolved into words on paper. That's the year I discovered that I wanted to be a writer. Finding it far more satisfying to write than talk. Devin's marriage to Darlene later that year was what they call a shotgun wedding. When their son Troy arrived I could see it all beginning again. Mom, the church - men of the cloth. Substance abuse. Her dutiful subscription to a world of pain, like it's something you just had to endure to get any forgiveness/sense of peace. Dad got worse. More angry. 

Flint Central High School was a rude awakening. I dropped out in grade 11 and started working at the Dairy Queen. That's when Ronnie and me became an item. He was kind at first. It's a longing. Turns out most families were dealing with all the same stuff I was. I didn't feel so alone after figuring that out.

We just want to be loved is all. Girls, women, grandmothers. Free from war torn family misfortunes. We don't want to be winners or losers. We just want to be reminded that we are special. Taken care of.

More to come.



OUR FATHER (part one)
who art in heaven ... hallowed be thy name (excerpt).

Part Two
ANNIE - May 30th 1977

When Ronnie and I moved to Detroit we did so quietly. No one knew but us and no one came looking for us. It was an adventure. 

I mean, I was born there 18 years earlier but moved to Flushing when I was 10 after Dad's job ended in '69. His thinking is that he could get hired at the new GM in Flint but that didn't materialize. Then came the drink. Then came the gambling, the bar hags and the harlots, promiscuity and infidelity. The Motor City showed potential so it was always on my radar to move back. More stimulation. Neither of us were employed. I had saved $3000 from the 2 years I worked at the Dairy Queen so I had first and last month's rent ($400) and enough to keep us going for a few months. Ronnie's contribution? Maybe $60 blown on weed and malt liquor in 3 days.

At first I was ecstatic, elated ... elevated. The first thing I wanted to do after moving into our tiny top floor bachelor near Comerica Park (large southern roof deck) was to party, get high and get properly laid. Ronnie? Whatever. Didn't matter. He became dead weight in weeks. 'Wake & bake Ronnie' I called him. Loser. 
Just so NOT sexy. I was aching for a real man (or woman) with moxy and panache. 

By late June, reality kicked in. Downtown Detroit was a disgusting cesspool of toxic smells, rats, race riots, police brutality and long line ups around the block to see Star Wars which I had no interest in but Ronnie had to see so I went and slept through most of it in a piss soaked downtown theatre that had sticky floors. Gross. Space shows/movies? Boring. No. I was far more interested in glamour, party life, celebrity, fame, Grand Funk Railroad, Siouxsie and the Banshees and Joy Division. WRIF Rock Radio, CKLW Windsor and the flocks of seagulls sailing past Belle Isle Park that summer while I sunbathed on a blanket dreaming of laying on top of Ian Curtis's scrawny frame. Ronnie got a job ushering at the Atlas Theatre so his pitch was that he could get us in for free on a night he wasn't on shift and that he would take me out for root beer floats after the show just like we used to in Flushing. Yawn. I had zero interest in doing any of that.

'Are you serious? Star Wars? Please no'! Ronnie was on my short list of baggage needing to go curb-side like pronto. I grew up real quick. DANCE! I loved moving my body to amazing music. Neighbours downstairs always complaining about the volume and the thumping on their ceiling. It became an obsession. Joining a local dance troupe that rehearsed at DCDC - Detroit City Dance Centre where we sometimes performed in front of an audience. Spiralling in the park or in some random parking lot; in a nightclub ... on a stage in said nightclub wrapping my slender frame around a slippery silver pole and sliding sideways. Blissfully waving my arms above my gyrating torso barefoot on green grass is still my favourite thing to do. It just makes total sense. An affirmation.

I partied backstage with Kiss in July at Cobo Hall and made out w/Ace. Ya bit of a groupie. Fun.




LAURA - Aug. 3rd 1977

Dad came to visit me alone that summer. Turns out he just wanted to fuck me again. "Hi baby, thought I'd pop in and say hello". He looked awful. Serious weight gain and dirty fingernails. Yuk. His stay lasted 4 hours before my now 'roomie' Ronnie walked in on us, punched him in the face and Dad bolted. I survived unscathed. Ronnie and I fucked that night. Daddy died 10 months later. Miss him? Fuck no. Ongoing shit-show. Mom's alone now. Getting smacked around was no longer in her forecast. My sadness for her was omnipresent even though I not once travelled the hour long journey to visit her in Flint. Maybe the odd phone call once a month lasting an uncomfortable 10 minutes. I had no car but there were Greyhound busses making daily trips. She must have been lonely. I was preoccupied in my newfound narcissism, cigarettes and casual encounters. The thought of returning to Flint was unbearable to me. Brother Devin, Brenda and Troy moved to Wisconsin a year earlier and I hardly spoke to them after that.

I met my new bestie Laura at a party in Dearborn that early summer. She was a total smoke-show, blonde. A young Sharon Stone (both 19 in '77) and a wild streak that came out after a few drinks. Laura was a budding photographer always taking pictures of me like she wanted to morph. A mutual fascination suggesting arousal that never really materialized other than making out a few times on a wayward sofa at 3am. Our tempestuous tapestry got us into trouble more than once. Laura suffered from an impulse control disorder leading to chronic kleptomania and had to repeatedly stay overnight in a jail cell as repentance for her rampant desires. She once told me that there was a sexual arousal in stealing shit. The more expensive, the higher the turn-on? Whatever. I just stole stuff because I wanted it - nothing else. Letting go. 

I got various jobs mostly waitressing. A short run dancing at The Duchess and then The Please Station where I could make more in one night than in a month working at Cardinali's Restaurant slugging hot chicken sandwiches, burgers and beers to married morons on the Chrysler assembly line who called me 'hun' and stared at my ass when I walked by. Honestly? I didn't see any real difference stripping than waitressing except for the money. If they could undress me with their eyes at work, then why not just undress for them on a public stage slowly sauntering to 'Don't Leave Me This Way' by Thelma Houston with $400 in my pocket after 3 hours instead of $40 serving grub at a grimy greasy spoon for 10 hours. 




THE TENANT - Oct. 22nd 1977

I gravitated to films. One early afternoon I spontaneously decided to take in Roman Polanski's The Tenant at the Detroit Repertory Theatre after a friend told me I looked like the French actress Isabelle Adjani and of course I was curious. Spellbound and hypnotized for 2 solid hours in a dark screening room occupied by me and a street person snoring in the back. That movie wrecked me on several levels. So twisted. It became a metaphor for my trajectory. Smoking dope every day just amplified my sullen mood. Some doom and gloom as the leaves changed colour and I myself started feeling lonely. I walked home after the movie, numb and indifferent to life, smoked a bowl, crawled into bed and slept for 12 hours.

That early fall, my beautiful muse Laura finally hit a brick wall emotionally, physically and financially and had to spend a year behind bars after trying to steal an expensive Canon AT-1 SLR camera at Universal Mall. She actually got it home, had it unpacked and was taking photographs even, before the police showed up and arrested her. We lost touch after that. When she was released, she didn't even try to contact me. Ronnie met Brenda at the Atlas Theatre (where they worked) and he moved out on Halloween night. Their wedding was a somber affair that I had to get quite intoxicated at just to endure. My life was complicated and there were some wonderful moments that year. Disco became a big deal even though I didn't care for it. So many ups and downs. I felt increasingly alienated in Detroit, now beginning to wonder why I was even here. Right. My birthplace. 

Born Anne Edith Russo on February 10th, 1959, I became Annie Sparkles in late '77 even though the logistics of changing it legally turned out to be too much of a challenge so I gave up. Writing, dancing and dreaming became a 24/7 preoccupation living alone now in that same chilly bachelor apartment anticipating a cold winter in Detroit City and that is just what I got. 


More to come.


.


OUR FATHER (part two)
who art in heaven ... hallowed be thy name (excerpt).



. 

Part Three
SILENT NIGHT - Dec 24th 1977
 

It's like Dec. 16th or some shit. Arriving home after dark, looking forward to a hot bath on a cold night.

A message on my machine from Mom. She wants us to come to Flint for Christmas (with a pressing need for that wish coded into her tiny depressed voice). Beep, next message ... Tom at the club wants to know what I did with the violet nail polish. Beep, next message ... Mom again - long pause. 'Right I'm sorry, I want you to come on the 24th please and sleep over ok? please?' Every other word that comes out of her mouth is sorry. Pathetic. Right. I was in Florida the year before so it had been 2 years since my last Christmas in Flint. No way! Sleep over? Jesus. (wondering how that's going to work in a small 2 bedroom Alcan prefab and a pissy shitty toddler screaming and running around the whole time). Big meal she's promising? Sounds painful. 'Oh and we don't need to do gifts'. Of course we're going to do gifts Mom. 
It's fucking Christmas!

What I soon realize is that she wants an old fashioned Christmas. Like the ones we had as kids, when we were a 'happy family', only we were never a happy family. A call to Devin in Madison early the next morning (first in months). Darlene answers. Like WTF? Yep. Mom wants Christmas in Flint. Kill Me NOW! I haven't seen Devin, Darlene or Troy in almost 3 years and it's NOT on my bucket list. Right. Christmas presents that will work on a Greyhound? Small obviously. This stupid Detroit Red Wings snow globe will work for the kid. Troy ... killing myself laughing while thinking about that. I mean - who names their kid fucking TROY? Jesus.

.

I arrived by taxi at around 4pm on the 24th, already starting to get dark. The drive from the Flint bus station was actually soothing - memories that felt nice. Like 2 feet of fresh snow on the ground; people shovelling. Cars stuck and more people helping by pushing them out of the winded drifts. Such is Michigan in winter. Gazillions of Christmas lights and a small group of kids singing carols on a downtown street corner taking donations for Salvation Army. 

The arrival. Walking in with my bags, dropping them on the floor. Big smiles. Happy. 'Devin and family coming soon' so I'm told. Hugging Mom actually feeling good. Pulling my fur lined hood back and shaking off the loose snow. Mom staring into my eyes, putting her warm hand on my frozen cheek. So sweet. 'I like your pigtails dear'. I'd braided them days ago and just left them. Right. "I'm home, yay!" lifting my arms up before taking off my mitts and boots, dropping my stuff in my old room. The room I wouldn't be sleeping in tonight (sigh), carefully placing some wrapped presents under the tree and helping her in the kitchen with what looks like an amazing Christmas dinner in progress. Days in the making and in micromanaged detail. 90% of the work already done? 'Wow Mom, this is all out amazing'! 'Oh it's nothing' she quipped even though it was obvious that she loved the praise. Gravy, sauces and dressings time (2 salad dressings; a ranch and an oil & vinegar). 'Oh and the rolls; can't forget the rolls'. Fresh, warm dinner rolls ... yum. Plum pudding, rum cake, home-made apple pie and ice cream for dessert. 

She seemed stressed. 'So how are you Mommy'? Stirring the gravy and turning the oven off. 'How are you feeling'? Silence. I hadn't seen her since our mysterious departure in May so ya, 7 months. Some mumbling. Nothing discernible. Sad I think. I brushed it off to it being a holiday thing. As the minutes passed, I got there was more to it than that. Substances?

I sensed tears. Alone with her in that kitchen pouring balsamic vinaigrette into a  crystal cruet that her mom had and passed on to her. She had a younger brother Warren in Lansing who passed far too early. She had no one left really. Devin & family arriving. Greetings & salutations! It was all quite wonderful. Darlene was 5 months pregnant and was frightened of everything including me for some reason. That all went away when the food was served. Devin carved the turkey like a 'real man' and we all made fun of him for playing the part. Dev was softer, more withdrawn. He knew he was challenged emotionally after a gruelling 9 month stay at the Old Genesee County Jail in '75 where he was beaten up by inmates a few times. A break and enter conviction seriously knocked the wind out of his sails, so he really appreciated that we loved him still. All of us laughing at the same time is a treasured memory. Loyalty is embedded in us. A right of passage. Free spirited freedom. I firmly believe that some (few) become rehabilitated after serving time in our public prison system. Most aren't.

Grace. Holding hands. Even Troy's as he looks around totally confused. Mom leads ... Heavenly Father, as we gather together this Christmas, we thank You for Your love and the greatest gift of all—the birth of Your Son, Jesus. We ask You to bless this food to our use, and our family and friends to Your service. Surround us with Your peace, keep us in Your care, and help us to remember those who are less fortunate today. In Your holy name, we pray. Amen.

FOOD!

There are many awkward silences while eating this delicious dinner, thankfully our ravenous hunger circumvented any required conversation. Devin was easily 20 pounds heavier than the last time I saw him and he was woofing it down like he hadn't eaten in days before sloppy seconds and thirsty third helpings. Stuffed and sitting around the living room after Darlene and I cleared the dishes and emptying leftovers into old Tupperware containers for the fridge. The tension continued; plates rinsed and left to soak in the kitchen sink, drinking tea and quietly staring at the Christmas tree with Bing Crosby on the record player and what appeared to be a subtle look of satisfaction on Mom's face. 

The tree was decorated in the same lights and ornaments that I remember as a kid growing up in Detroit. Presents under it albeit fewer. Gifts for each of us from each other that Mom insisted we open that night. A departure from the Christmas morning ritual. We were all just fine with the change. I was quietly hoping to get back to Detroit by early afternoon anyway. The gifts were inconsequential. Scarves, hats, gloves. Clothing mostly and the snow globe that Troy became instantly fascinated with. Shaking it and snow filling the glass dome was totally new for him. He sat on the floor and shook and looked, shook and looked for a solid hour laughing and smiling at his new muse. I was rewarded just watching.

.

Troy, almost 3 but technically still in his 'terrible twos' was a handful but not so bad. He was fascinated by Mom's elderly grey tabby Muffy but the fascination was not at all reciprocated. She tried to hide but unsuccessfully. A preoccupied Darlene chasing Troy all over the house while he chased Muffy all over the house, afraid he might break something; holding him tightly for a minute before he broke free and tore around the house again saying 'kitty kitty' over & over. 'Kitty kitty'.  'Kitty kitty'.
Mom smiling briefly felt euphoric. 

Devin sat there on the worn La-Z-Boy that Dad sat in for years, staring into the same fuzzy first generation colour Zenith, slowly getting inebriated with an open bottle of Jim Beam within a comfortable reaching distance. It was a haunting deja vu for me. Dark outside now. The Fat Albert Christmas Special was on. Devin was oblivious, occasionally laughing at the silly cartoon while Mom quietly sobbed and said nothing to anyone. I felt so sorry for her. Darlene was confused, having no idea what to do. I sat beside Mom on that continental beige/green paisley reupholstered sofa. I hugged her and asked her what was wrong but she didn't answer for the longest time. Finally, "oh it's nothing Annie, really" she said reaching for another tissue and blowing for the hundredth time. It felt like an old wound surfacing. One that she didn't want to talk about so I let it go. She'll work through this. All I could do was to comfort her (thinking). 

Shortly after 9pm, Troy finally down and a serious relief on Darlene's face like she had just finished working a long 16 hour shift. Tired. Devin passed out in the chair and Mom getting up to go to bed still sobbing even heavier now, following her. Worried. I stepped outside for a smoke while Mom got ready for bed, slipping into her long flannel nightgown and pulling the blanket up over her leaving the light on (knowing I'm close by). Brushing my teeth, I crawled into her partially sunken queen bed and slept beside her that Christmas Eve, shutting off the light. "Good night Mommy. Merry Christmas" with a quiet "Good night dear" back. 

Not a creature was stirring - not even a mouse. My arms around her as she shook and cried like a little girl having just lost her best friend, only Muffy was sleeping soundly on the solitary chair next to the foot of her bed. Darlene and Troy bunking down like I used to in the adjacent bedroom in my bed. A quiet submission in an overly warm house where the heat was cranked up because Mom was always cold. I got up to crack open the window a bit so I could breathe, returning to bed, wrapping my arms around her until her sobbing stopped and we peacefully fell asleep together.

.

I woke just after 7am, looking over at Mom's bedside clock ... 7.11am. The first hint of light seeping through the bedroom window. Wide eyes up. First thought? Honestly? Coffee. I wonder if Mom has decent coffee? Little laugh. Soft stretch and release. Probably not. So warm. Too warm. Turn the heat down. Jesus. Whatever.

Christmas morning at home again. Felt nice. Looking over at Mommy sound asleep and thinking maybe I should just let her sleep. Looking up at the ceiling. Counting my blessings. No not religious really but still. Life is a gift. Thankful to someone, something. A higher power? Thinking. It won't be long till Troy is bouncing around like a bowling ball crashing into the gutter and that familiar slash enters my game score card. Sitting up. Pants on. Right. Coffee! Cereal! Christmas! 

Looking back at Mom. Something isn't right. My hand on her shoulder. She's cold. A shake of her arm. 'Mommy'? Pulling her to her back. Her face is blue! 
Mommy's gone! FUCK! Stillness. Shock. 

It's a wave of numbness that kicks in first. A slight fog in your peripheral vision and a brief lapse in motor skills, dizziness and a covert nausea threatening to spill followed by a calm 3 minutes of assessment that will never be reimbursed - reassessment. Bullet listing the options in an attempt to contain this tsunami I see on the horizon threatening to wipe out all life in its path. Of course there is no real connection to reality now. This is nuclear. I sat in the chair, Muffy gone and just looked at her for the longest time. Frozen shut.

Troy bouncing in, 'kitty kitty' then Darlene chasing him into the room, looking up like a doe in the headlights staring at Mom then me. 'Mom's gone' voicing my words quietly in a doomed delivery as Darlene looks at the unintended dysphoria laying there in horror. Screaming for minutes ... Devin having slept on the La-Z-Boy all night is stunned and unresponsive, just staring at Mom like she was someone he had feelings for but not in this moment. There then gone. Devin was devastated eventually, once the nightmare kicked in. Disappearing? Right. Just what I would expect. We were shaking in disbelief as Troy kept running around chasing the cat. Oblivious. The ambulance came. That I remember. Darlene on the phone. Right. Police coming and going writing notes in their insipid pads with bic pens that I wanted to stab them with and a wish that they weren't really there. All a blur. Devin, Darlene and Troy just suddenly leaving in their rusting blue Plymouth Fury parked in the driveway now gone. Right. Just leaving. Got to get out of Flint like NOW. Thanks guys (thinking). Leave me here to deal with this. 

When the dust settled and the house emptied, I sat on Mom's side of the bed and wept like I had never wept before. Shaking, shivering. Helpless. Torrential tears that had been building up over my 19 year lifetime and finally releasing all at once. Looking over on the bed table and seeing an empty bottle of Diazepam and a half empty glass of water, remembering a phone conversation and Mom telling me she got the prescription to help her sleep months earlier. A feeling like I was going to choke. 

This was all planned. 

Finding Mom's cat carrier in the basement, gathering Muffy and a few of my things and getting into the taxi. I don't even know if Greyhound runs buses on Christmas Day. The driver confirming that they do. Looking at my Timex. 3pm. Turns out they did and a bus leaving for downtown Detroit at 3:45. Muffy meowing in the carrier. Knowing I had to return in a few days, just needing to get out of there. I don't remember the trip back, only arriving home to drop kitty off and my stuff, then the 15 minute walk to the club that was actually open and a smattering of lost and lonely souls gathered to celebrate Christmas in a stinky bar where I sat for several hours getting shitfaced. No dancers today thankfully.

Sensing my dark aura, trying to cheer me up was Tom the bartender. Pulling out his Philips Super 8 cam and filming me for fun.
 
"Smile Annie" pointing the lens in my direction. "Hey, can I borrow that"? Asking politely. "Ah, sure" he said and handed it to me. I stumbled out into the dark weather and started filming everything as I headed back to my flat a few blocks away. I kept mumbling the words over and over the whole way back ... 'I am not intoxicated right now; know where I am and where I'm going'.

.


OUR FATHER (part three)
who art in heaven ... hallowed be thy name (excerpt).
More to come.


. 

Part Four
AN AMERICAN DREAM - April 9th, 1978


An American Dream is for some and not for others, bought and paid for by American people who subscribe but don't necessarily benefit. A trickster's delight because 'we the people' love magic, vitriol and black masses; rewarding sycophants and punishing traitors. Just distract me. Show me your tits! Gladiator spectacles that dazzle with slashed torsos and severed heads, an empty vessel. A lamb at the slaughter. 'Oooh! Weapons that destroy shit? Cool. Bring it on!' Some simple and most dangerous. Some desperate, some greedy and most made of stone. Complacent. Indifferent ... pissed. 'I'm angry so yeah. What of it and what the fuck you lookin' at? What's your deal anyway?' Massive wheels on monster trucks driven by enraged 30 year old boys needing fuck - wanting to be like their Dads and failing. This spinning earth makes promises and all too often fails at delivering them AND it's always THEIR fault. Those who look and sound different than us. A con. Right. Doesn't matter.

Fuck that. So where's my cut? My stake in the claim?

This nation built on immigrants, suddenly has a problem with immigrants. Blacks are low life scum who don't deserve a fair shake or a decent life and entire cultures are becoming more and more marginalized/targeted for crimes they didn't commit, jailed for that which they didn't do. Incarcerated for being 'un-American'. Those 'white' Americans not supporting a growing animosity towards minorities? Labelled 'bleeding heart liberals' and essentially cast into the same stew of vermin who need to be disciplined then removed. 

Sounds like a whole lot of ... more for me, less for you AND you?? ... 

Locked up just like THEM.




PLEASE PLEASE ME - The Please Station


When Manny bought the club that early spring, I was still dancing there on Friday and Saturday nights. 8 hours over both nights paid my rent, bills, food and 'sundries' (wink ya drugs & booze) for a solid month but I did it every weekend and saved money. It was a dive bar featuring exotic dancers out on Gratiot near 8 Mile Road in North Detroit and it was home. I inherited Mom's '71 Buick so I was driving. Desolate but the club somehow drew big crowds, especially on the weekends. Friday night was golden. I typically made $200 in tips alone. $300 if I wanted to spend 30 minutes in the back of a Ford LTD 4 door making out with a married white guy who had kids and needing a specific kind of release, facilitating said release with my right hand. Manny wanted to make it a slick disco style strip club, closing for 6 weeks for renovations and a massive new sound system installed ... dancers from 8 - 10, disco from 10pm - midnight and dancers again from midnight - 2am. It was the only nightclub of its kind in Detroit then. I loved his entrepreneurial spirit. It worked and I was steadily employed.

Manny was a real character, in from Atlanta and wanting to 'expand' so he kept reminding me in his small office in the back, undressing me with his eyes like he wanted to expand in my general direction. There's no doubt he wanted to fuck me but was careful about that so it never happened. In his late 40s I'd say? Greek, married, spoiled teenage kids, slimy and smarmy but actually kind, honest and generous. We became friends and I got hired on after the renovations were finished at double my base rate while the other girls stayed the same.

.

The Please Station was always a play on 'The Police Station' in that it was a decades old hangout for Detroit's finest law enforcement goons and continued to be only not in uniform now (only in street clothes) after it reopened as a 'proper' entertainment establishment. Hilarious. Ah the American Dream. It was all about who had who in his back pocket and who could be fucked over next and cops could be bought just like everyone else. Patrons? Girls came from 10 till midnight to disco dance then left, leaving the guys who didn't score for the second dance show. Most were married and most white, in their 30s discreetly looking for a lil somethin' somethin' if you catch my general drift? First class, grade A assholes who needed to show some slut how much of a 'man' he was in the back of his Pontiac GTO where he tit-fucked them and jammed his average size cock into their slippery red glossed mouths. In those early days, my limit was hand-jobs for $50 cash, maybe some making out and touchy feely if they were cute for an extra 50. Revenue simplified. Remove the nightmares. Stick to the basics.

The adjustment in my wardrobe reflected my upward mobility and shift in lifestyle. Yves Saint Laurent and Anne Klein suggesting an understated elegance. Serious artist, modern dancer and writer Anne Russo through the week for no money to Annie Sparkles, exotic dancer & entertainer from Friday - Sunday for BIG money; sometimes waking up in a bed at Eastland Motel with some guy I would never remember $1000 richer after an honest night's work. Slipping out early and driving home before sleeping with my kitty for 2 days. Just necessary. My limits shifted and my goalposts kept moving. The lifestyle becoming more and more lucrative but equally provocative and precarious.

My resentment for these mercurial misogynistic men slowly festered and resulted in my increased consumption of Dubonnet on ice and cocaine. One invited the other. I mean it was a disco/strip club in 1978 so it was around and drinks were always free so a couple of Dubonnets over the course of an evening became 4 then 8, then 4 more after getting home by spring. My connection to getting blow was actually a cop who gave me a special deal in exchange for 'favours'. A euphoric blast for the first few months. Fun, but eventually? It was like the water spiralling down a flushed toilet and the contents of said toilet was me, round and round I go until the poo poofs. Gone. What was once a Friday/Saturday muse became a daily deal by that summer. I knew I was in trouble when I lost my keys for 2 days and the cleaner finding them in a men's bathroom stall at the club that I don't remember being in, likely doing something I shouldn't have been doing. I kept missing rehearsals at DCDC. When the AD confronted me saying 'if you miss one more you're out', I realized I had to take drastic measures. I had become a mess. Dancing was my passion so being let go from that was not an option.




ONE DAY AT A TIME - July 14th, 1978


“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change;
The courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference".

My first AA meeting at the East Side Alano Church was inspired by my new sponsor Emily whom I met in a Walgreens parking lot that summer. I had dropped my bag of groceries strewn everywhere on the hot pavement and was crying. Emily came to my rescue and it became a long benevolent relationship that I grew to cherish. The 12 steps were gruelling only in that they exposed the total lie that was my life and I fought it the whole time. The good news is that I consistently made my dance rehearsals and quit stripping at the club by late summer, realizing that it was the catalyst for my deterioration and totally unnecessary but all that was replaced with pots of coffee, 2 packs of cigarettes a day and 16 plus hours banging words into an IBM Selectric II typewriter into the early morning hours. I had saved $30,000 so I took the year off to focus on recovery, serious dancing and writing.

.

I first met the San Francisco born, Toronto dancer Danny Grossman when he was mime performing at a street festival in Greektown with 2 other dancers that late July. Brilliant man. I told him I was a dancer at DCDC and invited him to attend a show that evening at the theatre there. He was openly gay, dancing publicly in one of the most homophobic Republican states in America. I was so impressed by that. A real maverick activist so I later found out. I fell in love with him probably knowing he presented a zero threat; no ulterior motive and was only interested in the real me. He loved my dancing and we talked into the wee hours on the patio at Europa over coffees and cigs. He had just been approved for a serious grant by the Canada Council to assemble a new show called THE NATIONAL SPIRIT, a satire/parody on American patriotism that would be touring the following year AND he wanted me to be in it! Right. Now I'm REALLY in love with this man! I followed him to Boston then New York where he performed and participated as an activist at various planned events and I too became an activist carrying signs at protests with Danny and friends; more and more clearly seeing the hypocrisy under America's dark underbelly. I wanted to dedicate myself to exposing the facade. What I learned that summer became the subject of many memoirs dedicated to those who lived in the shadows and whose voices would never be heard. In my extended essay entitled An American Dream, I wrote the cascading fear.
 
.

Danny Grossman had become my inspiration, salvation and my liberator.

Those 2 weeks were incredible. I returned home a whole new person. When Danny and I hugged each other at JFK that late August Sunday morning, I sobbed before boarding my own flight to Detroit City Airport with something real to look forward to. Talk of rehearsals in November in Toronto and that I would share an apartment in Cabbagetown with other dancers. Time passed and the phone call I was waiting for never came. I later found out that The National Spirit toured all over North America and Danny won several awards for it.

.

I just kept dancing and writing, moving into a new apartment in Midtown with high ceilings, a stone fireplace, more light and space. Mom's kitty Muffy died that October (kidney failure) and I attended weekly AA meetings religiously, settling into a new calm in my life. That said I'm consistently reminded of my dark past, dealing with my vulnerability and entertaining monthly relapses, staying in regular contact with Emily who becomes my guardian angel. Jimmy Carter is our President now and there is an optimism I have never really experienced up until now with Nixon gone, Watergate under the bridge and Vietnam being yesterday's news. A time of rest. Who would have known that a peanut farmer from Georgia who taught Sunday school classes to children would ever have become our President? That said, the skepticism is still embedded in our national culture and the country's resentment just goes underground for four relatively quiet years.

In November, the ESA AA group had their annual Thanksgiving dinner that I helped with. Service is always a healing experience for me and a chance to talk to others struggling with addiction. A helping hand is always a confirmation of intent and a commitment to the cause. I learned to enjoy it, meeting artists, writers, musicians and even rock stars having fallen off their wagons and seeking another round of recovery after relapsing again.
 
In the short meeting before dinner, as I sat there in the group reciting the serenity prayer again, I noticed a newcomer sitting alone in the back corner of the room, head down, frail, emaciated, shivering and obviously in a lot of pain. I later approached and sat beside her after the meeting was over introducing myself, taking a closer look. It was Laura! I almost fell off my chair. She looked horrible. Looking up and through her dirty blonde hair and smiling. She was so glad to see me! A long hug and mutual tears, giving me an abbreviated version of her sordid story. Much like mine only far worse.  So sad. She then told me that the state was forcing her to do both NA and AA meetings regularly (thinking right, a cheap solution to a big problem) ... or go back to jail for a third time, this time for years; living on the streets - in shelters, park benches eating in soup kitchens a couple of times a week and turning cheap tricks for smack and liquor. Probation officers, Social Services, the whole shebang. She was really sick and stuck and REALLY did not want to be there. I offered to help but she didn't seem to be very interested in any help except for where she could get her next fix. I suggested she stay with me in my new apartment but she disappeared into the night, skipping the free roast turkey meal and I never saw her again. 

She stopped coming to the meetings shortly after that. Almost a month later, I found out she committed suicide by jumping off the Ambassador Bridge into the icy water of the Detroit River. I was devastated by that. What followed after for me was extremely difficult. 

OUR FATHER (part four)
who art in heaven ... hallowed be thy name (excerpt).
More to come.

Part Five
UNDERWORLD - The Reckoning - 4 years later - May 12th, 1982.



“First you take a drink, then the drink takes a drink, then the drink takes you.” 
F. Scott Fitzgerald


Losing Laura was a nosedive for me. A Mom revisitation just one short year later. 

I had ignored both of them for eight months before they took their own lives. It was an open wound, an overwhelming sense of grief, self betrayal and a confirmation of my unbridled narcissism now guilt multiplied by 10. The tsunami had arrived and it was about to pull me up, roll me over then under; tortured by what matters. That relapse I had been entertaining for over a year? Right. Full throttle starting right NOW. An extended bender that lasted into 1979 and kept swirling for 3 more years! My reckoning years. Best part? I still go to meetings. Every week, always relapsing the next day. Over and over. Over and over. A functioning alcoholic who incessantly writes. Hey, if Hemingway and Bukowski can do it? So can I (my flimsy justification). 

My first novel 'The Reckoning' picked up by Viking Press was a success. 1.2M sold. Times best seller's list for 9 weeks? Vivian fought for me and got me in there - long story. Turns out they were glad she did too and promoted her. Enough to continue paying my rent, groceries, booze and Friday afternoon 'special deliveries' ... an imported Parisian Musée d'Orsay Absinthe and Emerald Triangle. A Californian sinsemilla cannabis drop from a dependable local who shall go nameless, who I tipped well. Oh. Right. A new blue sapphire BMW 323i convertible, 2 door 5 speed (had my name written all over it), having moved to a studio apartment in Orchard Lake Village. Summer into fall into winter again. My second novel ... 'An American Dream' ... nominated for an American Book Award made me a millionaire on February 11th 1985. A check in the mail that late morning for $166,000 put me over the top. I celebrated that night by inviting people I didn't really know over to get shitfaced. I bought a house on Owasko Lake in upstate NY and entertained the likes of a young Polly Jean Harvey and Nick Cave (at the same time). 5 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms and a huge cedar back deck overlooking the wooded lake. So, it would appear I'm a real writer now. A liberal media is alive (good to me) and well thankfully or I wouldn't be here. All in all? I approve of this comfortable outcome. 
 
Checks and balances seem to appear when you need them (for now). 

I'm simple and sloppy. Almost 25. 20lbs heavier and dancing? It's what I do in the kitchen listening to The Police (Synchronicity) while cooking home made pasta and baking shortbread cookies at the same time; on my third glass of Cabernet Sauvignon at 4pm on a Tuesday. Sting? Ya I'd tap that, thinking Carbonara, the sauce for this pasta. New cat. Feral. A brute. Troy (don't ask). A male obviously. My big orange boy toy who slays dragons and eats them for breakfast. Big balls. He just showed up at my door one cold February morning and after a few weeks I convinced him to come in from the frozen tundra with some kitty treats I picked up. That was that. My new best friend. He had never been loved before and he returned my love three fold. Wildcat? Na. I give him kippers right out of the open can a couple times a week on my kitchen floor beside the fridge.

I order in pizza once a week and masturbate on average 4 ok 5 times a week. No boyfriends ... no girlfriends. I just get lit and write for the most part. Cold swims in the lake from May to October. Music? Ya lots. Obsessed with words. Great lyrics. Despite my fancy new digs, I lived in a dark cloud most of the time. A new IBM 286 DOS computer running Word Perfect which made writing a breeze now and an untitled third book in the works, this time with a $50K advance and a dreaded deadline. Vivian in Manhattan has left her job at VP and is a literary agent now ... my agent. I was her first.

I became an avid reader. American history, literature, the classics. Tolstoy, Aldous Huxley, Orwell, Ayn Rand, Hemingway, Doris Lessing, John Steinbeck, Bukowski to name a few. Subscriptions to The New Yorker, The Times, Washington Post and Rolling Stone (for vanity), all regularly delivered in my mail. If I wasn't writing, I was reading or sleeping. 




THE GIPPER


Ronald Reagan became our President in '82 firing up the far right again, raising more and more questions about the church and state and the invisible line that now separates the two. The Reagan years clearly re-established the role of the masculine man, 'in control' of any given situation and a need for compliant, complicit female counterparts who put their hearts, souls, devotion and loyalty solely into their men. 'Stand by Your Man', Loretta Lynn's late 60s anthem was reinstated and fortified after a decade of all this women's liberation nonsense. Back to basics! His wife Nancy was the quintessential and dutiful wife and role model for boomer women in their 30s, now carrying Mom's torch; having passed through their childish hippy dippy 'flower power' stage. Needing to 'get serious' about their lives as proper housewives, bearing children and affectionately waiting on their husbands, seeking constant approval, guidance and advice from their surrogate fathers. 

'Please Daddy. Tell me how to dress, what to say and how to act when we're in public and how to perform in the bedroom. Please? Can I get $20 so I can buy groceries'? Please and sorry ad nauseam. Taking the time to touch up her make-up and look pretty before her man comes home from work, fixing him a drink and asking about his long day. His favourite pork chop supper in the oven. Reagan's 'Make America Great Again' campaign slogan pulled on middle America's heartstrings with a return to traditional puritanical values. Translation? Racism moves back up to the front burner - again. My activist years were returning with a vengeance and into my storyboard it goes. This President's timely trick to harvest the religious vote was an insipid reminder of the delicate balance in America'a gullibility. The ticking time bomb that separates the men from the boys ... the righteous from the rabid.

Upon taking office, Reagan argued that the United States faced a 'dire crisis' and that the best way to address this crisis was through conservative reforms. His major policy priorities were increasing military spending, cutting taxes (to preferred customers) and tempering federal regulations that impair financial markets from operating freely. Throwing out rules that protect us from corruption and abolishing environmental safeguards that stifle progress. 'Capitalism must become unfettered and unhampered' he once said, paying homage to his wealthy donors. Reagan believed that reducing the role of the government would lead to a robust economy, which in turn would lead to higher revenues AND would help pay down the national debt. A win - win for all Americans right? Yay! Let's do Ronald Reagan for a second term people! Hallelujah. 

Our national debt tripled under Ronald Reagan, by far the worst of any President before him. His numb narrative was full of holes and his promises were empty and erroneous. Minorities became more marginalized. The rich got richer and the poor got poorer and the country significantly suffered as a whole. The most disturbing part? The restitution that he promised us never came. America still believed in him however. Enough to vote him in for a second term.

With Reagan in the White House again in '85, evangelism took center stage. Billy Graham, Jerry Falwell, Phyllis Schlafly, Newt Gingrich, and The Heritage Foundation launching a whole new mainstream circus of new cable broadcast ministries on new networks with daily televised 24/7 programming. The Christian Nationalism train was roaring down the track and nothing could stop it now. Captioned 800 numbers scrolling across the bottom of our screens so that those living in trailer parks could effortlessly donate on impulse to a new breed of multi-millionaires preaching the gospel, rolling in by helicopter then limousines, to giant venues with thousands of worshippers cheering in the stands like rock stars, all seen live on millions of fuzzy Zeniths all over America and all legal. Right after his first inauguration in 1982 a conservative evangelical Christian consortium called the "National Prayer Committee" was formed to coordinate asset allocation and divvy up the proceeds, establishing a fixed annual day of prayer. Amen. Our National Day of Prayer was formalized as a holiday for some but not others on the first Thursday of every May. 

A respite for devout hardworking patriots eager to pound back half a dozen Budweisers in their first back yard barbecue of the year in North Carolina. Ah the good life. Dad's in his element. Red meat sizzling, kids jumping in and out of the lawn sprinkler with squirt guns and the wife in the kitchen pulling the apple pie out of the oven to cool before making macaroni salad, anticipating the arrival of Don, Mary and their two brats (Brock and Bradley). Perfect.






THE MARTYR


The American grift becomes all encompassing and all under the radar. Corporate religion becomes exempt from paying taxes but has free rein on cleaning up on unsuspecting followers needing salvation and reassurance of their place in the food chain in exchange for their credit card number. Praise the LORD! Reaganomics preaches this idea that 'trickle down economics' justifies increased taxes on the middle class while cutting taxes on the wealthy/corporations, touting the idea that profits 'trickling down' from the top would benefit everyone. Profit sharing was the angle only that was never clearly explained nor did it ever happen. Like somehow those lower in the food chain would eventually receive their fair share and even more. Right. A certified grade A 'bend over, yer gonna like this' ream job and the American people buy it hook, line & sinker. Why? Because the message is delivered by an all American charismatic cowboy taking his Hollywood B list actor celebrity status into a B list presidency where entitlement dominates the mainstream media and campaign promises become con fodder. The messages are clear, and even reflected in the literary charts in exchange for allegiance. A prosperous America begins with YOU! That red white & blue star spangled squeeze play and a propaganda machine in full swing, working just the way it's supposed to.

God Bless America! 

Tom Clancy writes three best-selling novels that articulate and illuminate the Reagan era: The Hunt for Red October (1983), Red Storm Rising (1985), and The Cardinal of the Kremlin (1987), which all reflect Reagan-era Cold War values. The Soviet Union as an evil empire and the superiority of American resilience and technology are all themes in Clancy's thrillers and Reagan's rampant rhetoric. When Tom spoke at the White House Correspondents' Dinner in '85, he praised Reagan's gallant fortitude and commitment to restoring democracy, law and order into an 'international foray of unpredictable intent'. Policy elites used these novels (and even the filming of one of them) to promote their ideas on national security to the American public and American Exceptionalism became normalized as a bi-product of a newly charged pseudo religion in of itself. The patriot who goes down fighting for the cause becoming a hallmark of American heroism; a symbol of sacrifice and unwavering principles. The martyr. 

The 'cause' becoming more and more precarious as the Reagan era came and went. Continues.

OUR FATHER (part five)
who art in heaven ... hallowed be thy name (excerpt).
More to come.

Part Six
CARNIVORE - August 1986

My choices around men were always perilous.

Needless to say Peter’s arrival in my life came with all the predictable baggage ... a tortured artist/musician with a crazy charismatic chemistry. 6’6” and gorgeous looking, long wavy brown hair, chiseled face and big tattooed arms. It was like inviting a male cougar into my living room and then into my bed. We wanted to fuck right after making eye contact that first time backstage at a Brooklyn rock club. My type? Not even close BUT. WOW! I had never been attracted to alpha males for all the obvious reasons. That said, there’s that something there that I can’t quite describe. At times, breathtaking and at other times repulsive. Right. Peter could be a serious moron but hey. The breathtaking part took center stage. His physical presence. He fascinated me. He’s my Nordic/Polish warrior man child and looks like something out of a Viking cartoon. I lost 10 pounds that year. Svelte with substance. Peter likes robust women. ‘Something I can grab onto’ he used to say. Right.

Of course he is a heavy drinker with a questionable temperament (sound familiar?) but that’s all part of what makes him interesting. Damaged? Of course (couldn’t have it any other way)! Dangerous? Most definitely. Petrus Thomas Ratajczyk aka Peter Steele had formed the Brooklyn band Carnivore (later becoming Type O Negative) which was this potty mouth, gothy crunch rock outfit that I first saw at L’Amour club in late ‘84 and we started dating shortly after, if you could call it that. We got trashed and fucked a lot. Lots of scraps. If you’ve ever seen the film ‘Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf’ with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, you’ll get our insipid neurotic co-dependent self destructive dynamic after a year of bashing into each other in drunken stupors and screaming violent obscenities into each other’s faces before engaging in THE BEST make-up sex ever. There was mutual fulfillment. I’ll say that.

It’s quite amazing ... the lengths we’ll go to. To feel some semblance of love.

He moved in - to my lavish Owasko Lake cottage in the summer of ‘85 and started siphoning my money; often disappearing for weeks at a time, back to New York doing gigs, partying and wrecking shit. I won’t even begin to describe what happened downstairs (Peter’s ‘reck’ room) after midnight when he was home. Nope. Won’t go there. Let’s just say that it worked until it didn’t. Exciting then terrifying. He talked me into spending $6000 on a sound system planted in that ‘reck room’ with thrash metal pounding until all hours. Slayer, Anthrax, Exodus, Megadeath. My closest neighbour lived a mile away and I still got complaints. At first it was novel but wore thin. I grew to appreciate the silence when he left just like I appreciated his overall absence after a while. The thrill ride was losing its appeal and I was really growing tired of him by the fall of ‘87, right around the time I got pregnant.

When Zak was born, Peter had already moved out. One last serious row where he kicked in my expensive JBL 4309 speakers and destroyed the reck room in 3 minutes when I was 7 months into my pregnancy and my unborn son was hurled into a tornado nearing term. We were both intoxicated and when he bolted that late summer evening I was immensely relieved. My gut instinct was that he was gone for good. Two months later, I saw him for the first time since that night, when he showed up at the hospital after giving birth. ‘Zak’ was Peter’s idea knowing he could never be a real Dad to him but wanting to give his boy a noble name. His visit was nice. When Peter kissed me on my forehead and left me laying there with Zak, I didn’t know it would be the last time I would ever see him.

PURGATORY - Postpartum - November 1989

It’s the music that conjures the images which conjures the words.
Decent headphones pop. The story continues in a revisitation.

I am living outside of time and space as I have known it. As I walk through the shadows of a neighbourhood street near the hospital one early evening with my son strapped to my chest, I watch the other people going about their tasks: returning from work or school, carrying groceries or collecting the mail. The pause; that suspicious stale smile. ‘That child looks odd’, I can hear one saying from a distance. It feels as though I am watching a world to which I no longer belong. A world where I am no longer loved. Their look of internal anguish and external judgement; some crusty old witch from behind me in line at Walgreens saying ... ‘is that a mixed baby’? Really? ‘So what of it?’ barking back. Asshole. Zak isn’t a ‘mixed baby’ but I sometimes defend him like he is. Damaged, deformed, a freak and quite possibly retarded? Bring it on! Something in Peter’s east European genetics made Zak look dark. FAK! This is all a bad omen in a series of wretched dreams.

In one dream, I have left my infant son at Barnes & Noble probably close to a drinking fountain, where I might imagine him drinking from it in some semblance of his near future. When I come back he has curled up and has made a nest on top of a roof gutter where I need a ladder to reach because he is a rodent. Dry and deceased, quietly needing to be placed in a garbage bag and into the trash. In another, I turn my back to speak to someone and when I turn back he is gone. Someone else tells me he’s gone down to the river. When I get there he’s on the bank; bluish pale and not breathing, but I give him my air and he shudders back to life. I am grateful. So grateful. What did I just DO? Motherly instincts. A mother will do anything for her child. Time to go home.

Zak is a fucking nightmare. Alone up here, in Owaska Lake. ALONE! WITH THIS FUCKING MONSTER! Screaming 20 hours a day and sleeping for 4 while I lay wide awake staring at the ceiling waiting for him to wake up. Am I in a Siberian gulag in the 1930’s, in minus 60 degree hell? ‘What am I going to do’? Over and over and over again. Day in and day out for months. No reading, no writing, barely eating, no bathing, no swimming and no fucking. My Doctor called it postpartum and had no answers on what I should do because he is a man and essentially has no interest. None. Pills and shit to calm my nerves? Fuck off! I call it madness. A cyst on my brain. An aneurism, a reason to die. Sending me home with HIM! ‘Learn to cope. DEAL. With him’ - was my official medical prognosis. Right. The doctor said it would pass. It didn’t pass. Motherhood was the cloak over my eyes and mouth. I prefer the pump to his mouth. The pump never cries or bites. The pump never rejects my worn sagging tits or black and blue nipples even if my supply is low. Gravitating to formula out of necessity. If you disapprove? Fuck you.

Wanting to be pregnant was about my experience; how empowered I would feel carrying a child, pushing it through the narrow canal. How after that I would be able to do anything. I felt beautiful with my pregnant belly. I was Earth Mother. Goddess. Bearer of new life. I read half a dozen books on giving birth; the miracle of it. I didn’t read a single one about what happens after, totally getting the romanticism in the sanctity of life and the ‘pro-life’ movement’s mission to abolish abortions. Then there’s the reality; the hypocrisy. Life begins as an embryo in the womb but once your child is born no one cares. That one hurt the most.

When I said I wanted a child, it was in the abstract. Having a child is not abstract.

It is true. Sometimes I leave the baby in the rocker swing after he’s started to cry, just so I can put a dish in the sink. Or pee. Or drink a glass of water. It is true. I have thought about throwing the baby out a second floor window like it’s a TV smashing to pieces on the sidewalk below. I have thought about covering its mouth, only so it stops crying for a second so I could think even if I accidentally suffocate him. I could not have known what it would feel like to hold this creature asleep on my chest, his tiny fingers hooked to my skin. His body across mine: tiny buttocks, legs curled like a frog’s, the soft hair on his head and arms and his beautiful smell. I am drunk on it and I want it all to end. Be over. There’s the occasional moment of bliss ... I love to change his diaper. I love to watch his anus open like a tiny mouth and release the waste. I lift his meaty legs and wipe his bottom, applying the soft Penaten cream while he smiles at me, then sprinkling Johnson’s baby powder all over him before wrapping the whole thing up in a clean white cloth. It provides a sense of accomplishment that little else about mothering does.

Before I was a mother, I was a poet and a writer. I lay in bed on Saturday mornings reading for hours. I walked through city gardens and in the streets with no particular destination in mind. I read my poems in bars where a parched thirst like thistles flooded our dry mouths, where we stood up when the words sliced through our thin costumes, where we drank in abundance and danced until 2am with little thought of tomorrow. There were no children there. I lived in the land of no children.

I find that my moods mirror my son’s. If he is delighted and gurgling I am delighted. If he is crying and inconsolable I fall into despair. This back and forth might happen ten or more times a day. Everything is better when we leave the house. When it is like this: his animal mouth on me, head back, eyes closed, no sound except the catch of his breath and the swallowing. I do not know how long I can do this. It’s as if we are figures in a painting. We can never leave. If there was one silver lining in giving birth to Zak is that I stop drinking - had to.

VANISH - March 1991

If I really wanted to? I could just vanish. It was a daily contemplation on how exactly I would do that in Zak’s first 2 years. There’s a large wooded area out behind my house in upstate NY that goes back half a mile before it gets to the creek. Some sleeping pills and a razor blade would do it. Mid-day? Sure. Let’s rock! Weeks becoming months and into a new year. Time passes. Dark times. Death? Sure.

Ya suicide. It’s cyclical. Sometimes it’s a couple of times a year and sometimes it’s a couple of times a day. Every human goes through the same thing only likely a lot less frequently. What I have learned from all this is that I love my son more than anything. He is my every breath. My reason to live AND he is sheer torture. A natural disaster. Having had a long luxurious hot bath, I return to my kitchen, still wet. Zak is in the upstairs living room having broke out of the reck room?? NO! He runs up to me ... ‘Mommy I polished the chesterfield’ ... slowly stepping into the living room and looking in terror - he has generously applied black liquid shoe polish all over my new $3000 Ethan Allen leather sofa. Then there was the time I stepped outside for 5 minutes to take out the trash while he sat at the kitchen table eating Count Chocula cereal and when I returned he had emptied out the entire refrigerator … eggs, milk, orange juice, fruit, vegetables and pasta salad dumped out all over the kitchen floor. Whatever. I’m adapting. There’s a shift when Zak turned 3. His terrible twos actually easier too. Three? Even easier still. He needs to destroy shit. Give him shit to destroy in a contained disaster proof space and watch the clouds lift and my sanity return.

We’re actually settling into a rhythm. His 9 hours a day in Peter’s wreck room wrecking stuff before watching cartoons, eating then sleeping for 12 hours. Thank you God! I’m buying anything that he can wreck, take it down to the reck room and take it to the trash after. Old tricycles, shopping carts, empty gum-ball machines, junk VCRs (that he actually dismantles with his bare 3 year old hands) and endless blow up, punching robots and inflatable cartoon rubber like Popeye that he can climb on top of, deflate and demolish. Like feeding the alligator in your basement. It’s self sufficient, keeps him occupied and wears him out while I read, write, paint my toenails and make dinner, thinking end of life becoming less and less. New reasons to live.

Writing again! Writing is like vomiting. Shiver, purge, pause, drip, shiver, purge, pause, drip and so on over several hours. Reading it the next day is like having my daily reaffirmation complete. It starts with a small shot of cognac and into familiar territory we go. Writing more and more and more. Hours, days, weeks. Months. Years.

Zak grew and grew and grew and grew.

Our Father (part six)
who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name (excerpt)
more to come

                                                   Anne Sexton 1928 - 1974

visit my website - link below …

jimlamarche.ca

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blog posts in BLOGSPOT …

http://www.jimlamarche.ca/blog/

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JIM LAMARCHE: ABOUT …

http://www.jimlamarche.ca/about/