East Street

Tuesday, May 29, 2007

east street 

i used to live in a house on east street.  it wasnt quite a real house, just sort of a house.  it had a backyard, yet the front door opened right on the sidewalk in the middle of the little town i was living in.  it was an odd location.  big place, 3 bedrooms, living room, dining room, kitchen, laundry.  the bathroom was one of the sunniest bathrooms i ever remember seeing, and i really liked it.

my mom had just left my step dad, and i was in grade 7.  we had hardly any furniture at that time, but it was a vast improvement over the motel we had been staying in.  it got cold in that house, and water froze in the glass in my bedroom.  sometimes we didnt have any electricity either as my mom didnt always pay the bill.  still, it was our home at that time.

sometimes my friends would come over after school, and we would dance to the sound track from grease, and dream that we were sandy.  i liked sandy so much that i even wore my hair up in barrettes just to be like her.  we used to dance to disco too.

i actually dont have many memories in that house.  there is a picture some place of my mom looking scared and serious holding up some toy she made in front of a christmas tree, and a picture of my stepdad holding me by the scruff of my neck while i am laughing in my bedroom.  i had stuck photos all over the wall with tape, and had some old blue flowered sheer curtains tied up with string.  an afghan and a doll are on my bed, and the room is a putrid peach colour.  i dont think there are any other pictures from that house.  and i cant remember much that happened there.

i came home from school one day, and heard a crashing on the ceiling as i sat on the couch.  there were thumping sounds coming down.  i went up and found my mom in bed.  she could hardly speak but told me to go call my step dad at the legion where he was drinking with his friends.  i called him and told him to come over, which he did.  the legion was only a block away so he got there fast.  he called an ambulance, and the last thing i remember seeing was my mom on a stretcher being wheeled out of the house.  she didnt come back.  i dont know how long she was gone, and i dont know who looked after us.  i dont know if we went some place.  i have no memories of this time.  i know that she would have been gone for at least a month.  she had been sent to the local psych hospital as she had attempted suicide, and they kept her there for awhile.  after she had left the house, i went and looked around in her bedroom.  i remember finding pills and alcohol beside the bed, and a joint in the ashtray.  i dont remember feeling any emotions.  it is like that memory is just simply a tape that doesnt elicit any emotion, and i am missing most of the tape.  i just have this one scene of my mom trying to kill herself, a vague memory of dancing with my friends, and the layout of the house.

when my mom got out of the psych hospital, she had a boyfriend she had met there.  we moved in with him really fast, my sister and i being put in this tiny room in a mobile home.  the place was filthy.  i dont know how long it was before he became violent.  i dont remember any happy times at the mobile.  it was all dirty, unhappy, lots of drinking, people around, fish, and fighting.  the quality of my life went down so fast there.  i had little attention from my mom before.  in that house, i had none.  i was still in grade 7.

i cut my thumb real bad while filleting fish in the driveway.  i went in the house to get some help from someone.  everyone was so drunk, that no one helped me.  i had blood pouring down my hand.  i still have a scar from it.  i finally went to my friends house just down the road.  her mom cleaned my thumb up.  how could all those adults have ignored a kid with a bleeding thumb? i still dont understand.

i only hate one person in this entire world, and that is the man who my mom moved us in with when she got out of the psych hospital.  in all the years she lived with him, over ten, she never knew why he had been interred at the hospital.  turned out that he had sat in front of his ex-wife's house with a loaded shot gun pointed at her door.  he had sat there for ages before they took him away.  he was banned from owning guns because of that, and had to spend time in the psych hospital.  she never knew this until i was in my twenties.  and this is the man she trusted with herself and with her children.

my mom stood up for this man the entire time she was with him.  she always said i was lying when i tried to tell her what happened with him when she wasnt at home.  she said that i instigated everything, and that it was my fault that he was violent with her.  everything was blamed on me.  i was a kid, maybe 12 years old.  how could i instigate so much damage? i used to protest my innocence with her, but she never believed me.  by grade 8 we were living in a new city, in another house.  

that house was so run down.  there were holes in the floor in the kitchen so you had to be careful stuff didnt go into the basement.  the living room ceiling partly fell down from under the tub, and i dont think anyone ever fixed it.  there was just this huge spot with wood showing through.  that house was real dirty too.  everything was dirty when i was a kid.  my mom never really cleaned anything, nor did laundry.  she told me to go do it on my own once when i said about washing clothes.  how she expected me to go do it is beyond my thinking.

anyhow, i am not writing about that house.  i was writing about east street.  it is easy to get pulled down the road along to the different houses at times.  i just want to focus in on east street.

i liked my friends there.  i dont remember exactly who i hung out with, or what we did, i just have a great sense of happiness when i think of them.  and i remember dancing.  and i remember sunshine in the bathroom.  those are the good things, and what i choose to remember the most.  

looking back, it was a pretty big time of transitions for me.  we left the man who i loved dearly, my step father.  i didnt want to leave him.  i remember my mom screaming at me in the driveway that i had to go with her, and i didnt want to leave.  i loved him a lot.  my mom said later how he would come to east street and bring food.  he would eat and put the leftovers in the fridge, but we were not allowed to eat them.  i dont remember this at all.  that is just one of my moms stories.  i had to change schools when we moved and, at that age, i am sure that i must have been going through physical changes as well.

anyhow, i better get moving on with the day.  i am in a good mood today, feeling happy.  the sun is out, and it is a good day to be alive.  i am thankful that i dont live on east street and am thankful i dont live in that town.

i am wandering back to the sunshine of today...

:)

lou