play by play: part 3, the things we do
At the microscopic Asheville airport, I caught a glimpse of my stepmother sitting in a waiting area by the baggage claim. I kept walking and for several seconds the waiting room was obscured by passing people and a big column, during which time I said, "shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, you fucking bitch," loud enough for other people to hear me. I had to get it out of my system.
Turned out, my dad, 24 year old (half)brother and stepmother had all come the hour and a half to pick me up. How lovely. I hugged my dad without actually looking at him and my stepmother reached out and grabbed my arm for about half a second. It was awkward and I didn't make it any easier for her. She was trying in her own way to be affectionate and kind, but twenty-five or so years of hate running between two people is hard to ignore and I'm not yet a big enough person to take steps to change our relationship. She's also still a selfish, obnoxious bitch, so despite her occasional attempts to be nice to me, I still don't feel safe around her.
The long ride "home" was surprisingly ok. Every now and then some miracle sparks a bit of levity among the three of them and they talk and joke with each other like regular people. Otherwise, they are a bitter and quiet lot who sigh often and complain about other people as their main mode of communication. My know-it-all brother Alex stubbornly argues about everything, my stepmother behaves as though she's got the weight of the world on her shoulders and my dad simultaneously argues impotently with Alex and does everything in his power to appease my stepmother. It's disgusting. My dead brother Isaac was the fun one, the funny one, the jokester. He always held and carried all the humor and now that he's dead, nobody else has picked it up.
They were actually talking and joking this time, though, and that was good. I was just exhausted from an entire day in the air and I was quiet and dazed. They dropped me off at my grandmother's and we soon went to sleep. The next morning, my dad came down to Margie's and ploughed up a strip of garden for Margie's patch of greens. Together, after the tractor and plough were back in the barn, the three of us spread fertilizer and planted spinach and two different kinds of curly mustard. Margie, who is 88 and otherwise pretty sharp, couldn't keep track of which step of the process we were on. "Have you planted this row yet?" She asked me after standing and watching me spread fertilizer over it. No. Obviously not. But she couldn't remember.
Later, I went up the hill with my dad and we cranked up the new tree-trimmer (looks like a weedeater on top with a really long pole and a tiny chainsaw on the end... safe...) and trimmed branches out of an old hemlock that were hanging over a power-line. One ice-storm and they'd snap the line for sure. I stood with my stepmother under the tree, pulling on a rope that was, in turn, pulling a branch low enough for my dad to reach it with the tree-trimmer. Sawdust and hemlock needles fell on my head and kept me from looking up at his progress. At any moment the branch, or, worse yet, the tiny chainsaw, could crash down on my head. Fortunately, nothing crashed down on my head and soon my stepmother and I were dragging sawed branches down below the "orchard" for later burning.
Doing farm stuff is all my dad does on his days off and that's all I do with him when I visit. I used to be jealous of my other (half)brother Dave who used to go cool places and do cool things with his dad after my mom and stepdad divorced. My stepdad would take him on trips or to amusement parks and I would always feel a little shafted. "What did you do in Georgia at your dad's?" "Well, I helped bail hay and, uh, made sure the pigs had plenty of water every day...? It rocked!" I actually like(d) the farm stuff and didn't mind not going to amusement parks with my dad. What I was really jealous of was the specialness and aloneness of my bother Dave's visits. My dad and I never did anything alone together when I visited. I was just added into the family in a way that made clear I didn't quite fit. Not enough chairs around the kitchen table, not enough bedrooms, not enough fishing poles, not enough room in the truck. My bitchy stepmother made every moment uncomfortable and my spineless, worthless dad didn't do anything to protect me. So there you go.
Instead of having time alone with him, I'd just follow him around in his farm chores or be dragged along to "help" with this or that project, but my stepmother always made sure I felt like the city girl who didn't know her ass from a hole in the ground. My dad would philosophize about the difference between "book learnin'" and "common sense" and I could tell from what he said that "common sense" was best and that the somewhat suspect "book learnin'" is what I had. Oh well. Why did I keep going back? Good fucking question. That's what I'm trying to figure out right now.
Turned out, my dad, 24 year old (half)brother and stepmother had all come the hour and a half to pick me up. How lovely. I hugged my dad without actually looking at him and my stepmother reached out and grabbed my arm for about half a second. It was awkward and I didn't make it any easier for her. She was trying in her own way to be affectionate and kind, but twenty-five or so years of hate running between two people is hard to ignore and I'm not yet a big enough person to take steps to change our relationship. She's also still a selfish, obnoxious bitch, so despite her occasional attempts to be nice to me, I still don't feel safe around her.
The long ride "home" was surprisingly ok. Every now and then some miracle sparks a bit of levity among the three of them and they talk and joke with each other like regular people. Otherwise, they are a bitter and quiet lot who sigh often and complain about other people as their main mode of communication. My know-it-all brother Alex stubbornly argues about everything, my stepmother behaves as though she's got the weight of the world on her shoulders and my dad simultaneously argues impotently with Alex and does everything in his power to appease my stepmother. It's disgusting. My dead brother Isaac was the fun one, the funny one, the jokester. He always held and carried all the humor and now that he's dead, nobody else has picked it up.
They were actually talking and joking this time, though, and that was good. I was just exhausted from an entire day in the air and I was quiet and dazed. They dropped me off at my grandmother's and we soon went to sleep. The next morning, my dad came down to Margie's and ploughed up a strip of garden for Margie's patch of greens. Together, after the tractor and plough were back in the barn, the three of us spread fertilizer and planted spinach and two different kinds of curly mustard. Margie, who is 88 and otherwise pretty sharp, couldn't keep track of which step of the process we were on. "Have you planted this row yet?" She asked me after standing and watching me spread fertilizer over it. No. Obviously not. But she couldn't remember.
Later, I went up the hill with my dad and we cranked up the new tree-trimmer (looks like a weedeater on top with a really long pole and a tiny chainsaw on the end... safe...) and trimmed branches out of an old hemlock that were hanging over a power-line. One ice-storm and they'd snap the line for sure. I stood with my stepmother under the tree, pulling on a rope that was, in turn, pulling a branch low enough for my dad to reach it with the tree-trimmer. Sawdust and hemlock needles fell on my head and kept me from looking up at his progress. At any moment the branch, or, worse yet, the tiny chainsaw, could crash down on my head. Fortunately, nothing crashed down on my head and soon my stepmother and I were dragging sawed branches down below the "orchard" for later burning.
Doing farm stuff is all my dad does on his days off and that's all I do with him when I visit. I used to be jealous of my other (half)brother Dave who used to go cool places and do cool things with his dad after my mom and stepdad divorced. My stepdad would take him on trips or to amusement parks and I would always feel a little shafted. "What did you do in Georgia at your dad's?" "Well, I helped bail hay and, uh, made sure the pigs had plenty of water every day...? It rocked!" I actually like(d) the farm stuff and didn't mind not going to amusement parks with my dad. What I was really jealous of was the specialness and aloneness of my bother Dave's visits. My dad and I never did anything alone together when I visited. I was just added into the family in a way that made clear I didn't quite fit. Not enough chairs around the kitchen table, not enough bedrooms, not enough fishing poles, not enough room in the truck. My bitchy stepmother made every moment uncomfortable and my spineless, worthless dad didn't do anything to protect me. So there you go.
Instead of having time alone with him, I'd just follow him around in his farm chores or be dragged along to "help" with this or that project, but my stepmother always made sure I felt like the city girl who didn't know her ass from a hole in the ground. My dad would philosophize about the difference between "book learnin'" and "common sense" and I could tell from what he said that "common sense" was best and that the somewhat suspect "book learnin'" is what I had. Oh well. Why did I keep going back? Good fucking question. That's what I'm trying to figure out right now.
posted by reasonably prudent poet at 2:48 PM
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