Steve gets his First car



Looking back at my childhood I find it's no wonder my Father was an alcoholic . I'm certain that his children had no small part in bringing him to that point.
After I (With much help from Rose ) ruined the red car with comet and a healthy dose of sos pads , Dad went out to buy a new car. Dad was working steady at the time so he figured he could go to car lots and find something only a few years old. So we all piled into the old station wagon we had and went shopping for cars.
Dad was very picky and looked at many car dealers. Many times Dad would go out into the lot looking at cars with the salesmen while leaving the rest of us waiting inside the building. At one dealership my brothers (Steve age 14, Geno age 11,and John age 10) began to talk quietly amongst themselves. Devious little smiles spread on their faces. Steve and Geno went toward the front of the building. John began to slip more towards the back. I sat in a chair next to Mom wondering who washed all these cars.
Suddenly Steve was yelling at Geno. Geno began to yell back. Before anyone knew what was happening my two oldest brothers were rolling around apparently trying to beat the shit out of each other. Everyone rushed over to see what was happening and to break up the fight
Everyone but John.
Mom grabbed Steve and Geno by their collars and told them when their Dad came back in they were in big trouble. They both protested with a "But he started it". John came back over and smiled at Steve. A few minutes later Steve asked Mom if he could go across the street and get a bottle of pop at the gas station. Dad was out test driving a car , so Mom,happy to be rid of one of the kids for a little,told Steve ok. Mom even give Steve a little money to buy some extra candy. In the time it took Steve to get his "bottle of pop" Dad test drove 2 more cars. Mom looked a little worried about what was taking Steve so long but a quick look showed her he was back and just walking around looking at some cars on the lot. He came back in and Mom asked him "See anything you liked ?"
Steve smiled and nodded. He called John over and gave him a few pieces of candy. John moved towards the back of the building and Geno asked "Where's my candy?" Within seconds the two were rolling around on the floor fighting again. Before Mom could move over to break it up Dad came back in from his last test drive. Dad grabbed both and threw them out of the dealership and told them to get into the car. He yelled at the rest of us kids to run out to the car as well. Rose and I ran out followed in a little by John.
All the way home Dad yelled at everyone about how embarrassed he was by us. When I tried to point out I was being good he shouted that if it wasn't for me to begin with we wouldn't have to be looking for a car .
Strangely Steve ,Geno , and John all had little smiles on their faces.
Within a few days Dad found a car(blue) and everyone seemed to forget about the fighting at the car dealership. I remember a little over a week and a half later Steve got in trouble when he was caught sneaking back in the house after midnight. After that it seemed Steve was never home. Geno and John were always wanting to go out with him and it seemed Steve was always sneaking out at night .
Finally one night ,well after 1 in the morning, the phone rang. It was my Mom's brother Kenny. Steve had called Kenny needing help. He told Kenny it was very important not to call Mom and Dad . He also told him he was calling at a phone booth in a local park. Steve asked if Kenny could come pick him up. And please don't tell Mom and Dad.
So Kenny being a loyal and loving Uncle (and also drunk out of his mind) called Mom and Dad.
I woke up when Dad came bursting into our room to see if Steve was really gone. He stormed out swearing that Steve was a dead man. Geno and John were sitting up in their beds .
"what's happening?" I asked.
"Steve stole a car . He's been out riding around in it every night this week."
My two brothers told me that when Steve and Geno got into the fight in the dealership ,John stole a key from the wall. Steve went across the street to the gas station had a copy made. Steve came back walked around the lot until he found the car matching the description on the key ring. He came back in and promptly got into another fight with Geno. That's when John put the key back.
"That's so cool" I said.
Dad did not find it quite so cool. We waited well over an hour for Dad to come back. When we did we could hear him before he got into the door.
"YOU STOLE A CAR!"
Mom was sitting in the living room waiting to know what had happened. Dad yelled at her to get Geno and John. She dragged them out for Dad to yell at.
" DID YOU HELP YOUR BROTHER STEAL A CAR?!!"
"No Dad" they cried together.
" STEVE TOLD ME YOU DID! IS STEVE A LIAR?"
"Yes Dad, he's a liar!"they cried together. "He's also a thief!"
"What happened" Mom demanded.
Steve had been out driving with two local boys , the Pena brothers,(who always seemed to be in as much trouble as Steve) and Dad's two twin youngest brothers Tom and Tim. All of these kids were around 3 years older then Steve. Yet they seemed perfectly happy to let Steve drive them around in a stolen car.
Until Steve drove the car into a lake.
Scared and wet and not knowing what to do they called Uncle Kenny who wasn't much older and asked for help. He promptly ratted them out . So it was a total shock to see my Dad drive around the corner to pick them up. The Pena brothers not being idiots promptly ran into the woods. Steve , Tom, and Tim stood there like deer in the headlights afraid to move. Dad dropped his brothers off at his Mom's where they were yelled at until 6 in the morning.
Dad was so mad he yelled all night. When he couldn't yell anymore he had Mom yell. About every 10 minutes he'd shout out "MY SON'S A GODDAMN CAR THIEF! I SHOULD CALL THE POLICE!!" Dad yelled until he had to go to work . He came home and yelled some more.
But he never did call the police.
And he was finally more upset at someone else then me.
I know in reality that the car was probably found the next morning , and fished out to be returned to the dealership. Yet in my mind that car is still sitting on the bottom of the lake with what's left of a case of beer. The radio turned to a loud rock and roll station. The drivers side door open, waiting for Steve to come back and drive off in it.

Red cars are cool


My Dad loves red cars. For him no color is better for a car then red. Which is sad really because he's only had 2 red cars in his life.
And I ruined them both.
To be fair the first wasn't entirely my fault. I was only 4 after all. I like to blame Rose.
Dad bought his first red car while I still in the hospital waiting to get that B.B. out of my kidney.(I don't remember the make or model. At 4 years I didn't pay attention to those things. And Dad still won't talk to me about it.) When they would visit Dad would point out the window and ask me what I thought of it.
I thought the top was lovely.
After I came back from the emergency room after cutting my arm, Dad was very happy that I hadn't bled all over his clean white seats. He actually told me that as I lay in bed recovering. Mom said he was just joking. I'm not to sure.
He was so careful about this car that he wouldn't even drive it to work. He would car pool with one of his brothers.
Dad's only mistake was he was cheap. Why pay to wash it when you have 5 kids that'll do it for free? So every Friday before Dad would come home from work my brothers and sister would wash it. One Friday, about 2 months after coming home from the hospital, I wanted to wash it. This was fine with Mom. My brothers were gone fishing ,and it was just me and my sister. Mom got us each a bucket of hot water and soap, turned on the hose and let us loose.
I had fun washing the car. I thought that Dad would be very happy with the job I was doing.
I don't remember when I got the comet and sos pads. I do remember thinking that it would make it easier to clean the car.
For the record Rose thought it was a good idea as well.
Mom had no idea what I was doing. I'm sure she would have stopped me.
When comet and a sos pad meet car paint....The car paint doesn't win.
I didn't understand what I was doing . The more I scratched up his car the more I scrubbed. I swear to god I think I turned part of it pink. And all the while I was happy as I could be. The entire passenger side of that car looked worse then a scratching post. Rose saw what was happening and took off.

Dad came home to find me standing by his car with a can of comet in my hand and a huge smile on my face. He stepped out ,saw the car and his eyes grew inhumanly large. Very strange noises began to come out of his mouth. His hands began to twitch .I think he would have whipped me but I was still covered with bandages and he was afraid I'd break apart into 5 very messy pieces. He was so mad I swear I thought I saw tears coming out of his eyes.
I remember A LOT of yelling that night. All of the kids stayed in our rooms without making a sound.
For the next 2 weeks Dad could not look at me without those strange sputtering noises coming out of his mouth.
Being only four I soon put it out of my mind ( What? Me ruining your car Dad? That's so last week.)
It took a bit more for Dad to stop making growling noises at me .
But that's a different blog.
Dad was so upset he got rid of the car. Or as he called it "that damn piece of crap." Or "Tom's monstrosity ".
He didn't buy another red car for 8 years.
In the summer of 76 Dad bought his new pride and joy. A 1966 red convertible Mustang.



Once again he was proud of his car. He treated it better then most people he knew.
And he never ever let me wash it.
For the next year the only time I saw Dad smile was when he drove his Mustang.
(Let me explain something first. In my family Dad "smiling" meant an absence of a frown.)
Dad was so careful he parked his car in the backyard ,next to the house. He thought if someone would try to steal it he'd hear it.
So early one spring evening while Dad sat in the house secure that his car would not be stolen, I was outside playing with my next door neighbor. We were throwing lawn darts back and forth. In case you don't know lawn darts were the single most dangerous toy ever invented . They consisted of two sets of monstrous darts weighing up to 3 pounds with a spiked end that would bury itself into the lawn. ( Hence lawn dart) The point of the game was to throw your teams dart into a large hoola hoop ring laying on the ground a distance away.
So two 11 year old boys throwing in what any other country would be considered a lethal weapon. What could go wrong?
I wildly threw a dart in the air. It missed the target by a good 50 feet. It did however find the soft fabric top of Dad's Mustang. It tore though the top and buried itself into Dad's seat.
I almost pissed my pants.
Actually no I'm pretty sure I did piss my pants.
I turned around and saw my friend running away. My heart was beating so bad I thought it was going to burst out of my chest. I ran to Dad's car and opened the door. It looked worse then I thought it would. I took the dart out and returned it to the rest of the set. Then I sat on the back door steps shaking like a leaf.
I ran though a list of options.
1. Blame it on Rose.
Nope. She wasn't home.
2. Blame it on John and Geno.
Nope. They might beat me up.
3. Blame Mom.
hmmmm. Nah I couldn't do that. ( It wasn't that I wouldn't . I just couldn't figure out how to blame her and make it stick)
It was fast getting dark and I knew I'd have to go in soon or Dad would come out and see if everything was ok. I looked down and saw a rock by my foot. A thought struck me. I grabbed the rock , ran over to the car and dropped it though the top. It was a little bigger then the hole so it ripped it a little more. I then opened the car door and wiped my finger prints off the rock ( Hey I was 11). I looked around to see if anyone was looking , and then ran into the house. I walked as calmly as I could to the living room and sat down and watched TV with the rest of my family. All the while I couldn't stop thinking that Dad was going to kill me. I went to bed early that night but lay awake till late at night dreading the next day. I was covered in sweat.
The next morning Dad's screaming voice woke me up.
"God Damn Kids!" My heart stopped beating. I heard Dad's footsteps coming up the stairs. My door flew open and Dad came in holding the rock. "Look at this!"
As calmly as I could I asked "What's that?"
Dad stared at me for a minute and then said "Someone threw a rock at my car. Ripped the top!It tore up my seat! Did you see anyone outside last night?"
My heart started beating. " Yeah some high school kids were riding their bikes in the alleyway."
"God Damn kids!"
Dad turned and left my room. I lay back in bed and thought "Cool. I got away with it." Downstairs I heard Dad yelling at Geno and John about "God Damn teenagers!" For the next few weeks anytime Dad saw a high school kid he'd grab me and ask "Does that look like one of them?"
Dad sold his Mustang to John a few months after that.
And I never ever played lawn darts again.
To this day I have never told my Dad.
And I never will.

Respect

When I was 16 my Father gave me a lesson about respecting my fellow man.
At this time Dad was the head administrator of an clinic for alcohol and drug abuse. It seemed he was on call 24 hours a day ,7 days a week. While we did not have a lot in common and our relationship was strained at times, I admired my Dad for what he did for a living. He had overcome his alcoholism and was now trying to use his experience to help others. While I admired what he did with his life ,it did however interfere with our lives.
On this particular day Dad and I were going to see a movie. Before we could go he stopped by his office to get a few things. While there Dad found out that one of his clients was now refusing to go into rehab for treatment. Dad muttered something that sounded obscene under his breath and told me we might be late for the movie. We went back to the car and drove over to his clients apartment. When we got there, instead of having me wait in the car , he had me go in with him.
It was a messy dank place, with the smell of urine in the air. Trash lay everywhere. His client was perhaps the most pathetic person I'd ever seen in my life. He sat on a filthy couch with just a pair of shorts on. He hadn't shaved in a while, or likely bathed in even longer. His body had numerous sores all over, and his feet were red and swollen to a grotesque size. In his hand was a bottle of beer. I had never seen my Dad with a client before. I had always suspected that he just yelled at them until they stopped drinking.(It was his tactic of choice for getting me to do pretty much anything.) Instead he grabbed a kitchen chair, moved it next to the couch, and began talking to this man.
We were there half an hour. I don't remember any of the actual words Dad used. What I remember is how Dad treated this man. I stood by the doorway and watched my Dad treat with utter dignity this man with no dignity at all. He never yelled or raised his voice. In the end , the man agreed to go into rehab.(I would later learn that this man died a few short weeks later)
By time we left it was to late to see the movie. I was upset and called his client a worthless drunk. Dad pulled the car over and chewed me out. " There but for the grace of God goes either you or I! The only way to help people is to treat them like the person you want them to be. Everyone deserves to be treated with dignity and respect , because you never know when it's you who will need help !" I had never heard my Dad speak with such passion.
Before I could ponder long my Dad's words of wisdom we came to a 4 way stop. Crossing the street in front of use was a short squat woman . She was at least 100 pounds overweight wearing a pair of black shorts and a gray tank top(that I suspect at one time was white) that showed off too many rolls in her belly. Her hair was dyed a very unnatural color of red. From her lips dangled a cigarette. She looked our way as she crossed the street and gave my Dad a smile.
Dad stared straight at her and said very loudly so she could hear "Well there goes God's gift for mankind!" A very indignant look crossed her face as our car pulled away from her.
Thus ended my lesson in treating others with respect and dignity.

My family Motto: Blood may be thicker then water, but it's much harder to clean up.