Chapter 8 Miscellaneous Anecdotes – Sundry Cruelties
MY DAD WHAT HE DID & DID NOT DO- Channel him
Theatrical name for him: Sir Lancelot, because he was a good Knight but flawed
ME: Dad, when you & Mom separated, we lived on the farm, Marius was with us, you stayed in B’klyn to work. The ‘wisdom’ was that you would join us eventually & we would have a homestead of sorts – one sweet dream was you would set up a Lithuanian Boy Scouts Camp Center in our woods. {Dad had been a Boy Scout leader when we were in Germany, not sure about when we were in Lithuania. He took Boy Scouts on a trip to Paris, that’s all I know.}
I have a few questions. (1) Did Mom really intend to have you come live with us at the farm or was she pulling your leg to make sure you sent money, & that, enough of it. And (2) Why did you sue Marius for ‘alienation of affection? What did you hope to get out of it & (3) Why did you not send more money, did you deliberately send less than you could/should have out of revenge & selfishness – to abandon us to a poverty where Mom sometimes had to borrow money for food.
DAD: She never intended for me to come live with you, but she pretended she did to keep my hopes up & to get continued support for the family. She was done with me, in her mind, she had stopped loving me long ago & now she had a new man – but she was a good con artist she convinced me they weren’t having sex, & that I would be welcomed back with open arms when the time came. All this was a hoax carried on for a year.
If it hadn’t been for me getting a $500. {today $4,898.} loan from the priest, she couldn’t have had this property.
Yes, I did hope to set up a Boy Scout Camp there, yes, I did hope to be a homesteader like the old days in Lithuania. Where there was a will there would be a way, although it wouldn’t be easy. Had your Mom wanted me back I could have worked at Brockway Glass, just as she did later, yes, a minimum wage job – but there could have been survival. That homestead was too difficult for two people, but with three it was possible.
But of course, your Mom didn’t want me back, she hated me. She just wanted money. Yes, it was for the family, not just her, but once I knew she for sure didn’t love me & didn’t want me back I was deeply hurt, emotional & somewhat revengeful.
ME: How could you have been so gullible that she was not having sex with this man, with whom she already had had a child?
DAD: On some level I knew she was lying but pretended to myself I believed her, & I just wanted to come back, live with her, {even though another man was around & she might sneak off & have sex with him} have the creature comforts she gave, have my family, do the homestead bit that I also loved – I had dreams. Yes, I was a fool in love, yes, she deceived me, yes, I fell for it, yes, I loved her & not you, yes, I abandoned you my daughter, yes, I was wrong.
ME: It would have been awfully complicated to have a woman living with two husbands, deceiving the original one, it sounds like a joke. Imagine juggling something like that. OK, now to the next question, # (2).
DAD: That lawsuit was simply to vent my rage or bile on them, there was nothing more to get out of it. I could get no money, he could not be put in jail. The only thing viable would be that for both of them, it would be an unpleasant surprise & they would spend some days or weeks in discomfort wondering what would happen. They would have an unpleasant day in court, that would be my revenge.
ME: An idiotic move on your part, I say. And here I was begging you to take me, you didn’t care, you rejected me, but you take them to court for this nonsense.
{PS The year this was either 1955 or ’56, I was around ten – did not have the slightest idea what was going on. The Judge’s name was BRODY in Freehold, N.J. I recall vividly sitting in the court, all us kids were there, & Marius repeating over & over, ‘It’s all my fault,’ & Judge Brody kept saying ‘What’s your fault” hoping he’d ‘incriminate’ himself I suppose – but Marius spoke bad English & couldn’t defend himself – I don’t know if what he was accused of was even a crime. I pieced together what the lawsuit was as I got older.}
Now to question (3). I could have/should have sent you more money – more than twice what I did. Why I did not is the usual – selfishness & revenge. Here she had a new man, yes, I knew they were struggling, so of course I sent some money, but just enough to say I was helping, not a cent more. She was enraged but she could do nothing to me, & so she took it out on you – my pet, you adored me, you were the target.
Yes, I could have interviewed you to find out how she treated you, but I didn’t. And so, I had no idea how cruel she was & later they, were to you. Yes, I could have found out, but finding out would have made me more culpable, that I was guilty of not taking you. So I stayed ignorant of the cruelty to protect myself.
Yes, I sound like a despicable man now instead of the Saint & angel you thought me to be. I was neither, just an ordinary man who was kinder & nobler than most, but I had my faults. It took you a while to take me off the pedestal.
ME: Now I will interview Marius Bernotas {Mom’s lover},
MARIUS BERNOTAS – channeling him
Theatrical name for him: SANCHO PANZA a farmer who was squire to Don Quixote. {internet:} “Don Quixote is the one who dreamed the impossible dream, while he was so near to reality, which is Sancho. Sancho Panza jeopardizes himself when he leaves reality. He loses his identity by following Don Quixote. … During their adventures, Sancho gets caught up in the madness entirely.”
I call him this because I recall at the age of 6 going with Dad to call on Marius, who was living in a nice apt. Dad offered him to come live with us for $6 a week, room & board & Marius accepted. {this was 1951 – $240 a month today’s money.} Dad was a fool, so was Marius, just like Don Quixote & Sancho Panza, both fools following an impossible, mad dream, living with a woman who was a con artist, pretending nothing was out of the ordinary, just a man renting a room.
ME: Marius I have a few questions. I know you were a friend of the family before we visited you with the offer. Nevertheless, (1) why did you accept the ‘room & board’ deal when Dad presented it to you. Did you not sense there could be trouble? Were you already having sex with Mom? (2) The Priest – I was told Mom by a lady of the Church – many years later – that Mom had an affair with him & then she switched to you. Why did she want you? (3) Why did you take out your cruelty on pregnant animals, the poor cat Mitzi & the poor pregnant cow? I might have other questions after these.
MARIUS (Sancho Panza): I did not anticipate what I was getting into, how miserable, complicated & ugly it would get. I was an ignorant fool falling into the trap of a devious woman. If I had been left alone my life would have been easier. I got involved with her for a squirt from my penis.
(2) Her affair with the Priest: I was not aware of the details, & I heard rumors, mostly from her getting upset when the priest supposedly denounced her from the pulpit. He was probably giving a sermon on adultery & she was guilty so she assumed it was about her. Even if he said nothing, the dye was cast, word travels fast, everyone knew about it, it was time to get out of town.
What did she want with me? The car. I had a license & car, Dad did not & never would. She used me for herself & the family for everything needing a car. I took you to the beach, to Deer Park {which you adored-we went many times-it was a lake & had a flock of deer} & Lake Hopatcong {you did not like that, filled with rocks}. And you loved it when we went many nights a week – while your Dad worked at the hat factory – took a bag of delicious sandwiches, randomly found a place to park & ate, just to get out of the house.
(3) My cruelty to animals: I had to take out my anger on someone or something, so the animals were an easy target. Yes when Mitzi had a big belly I kicked her with all my might & all her babies were still born. You nursed her in a room in the barn for weeks, she almost died.
And yes, you watched me when I brought the pregnant cow back from the field, she didn’t obey me right away, I took the chain & beat her on her belly, & to make it worse, I picked up an iron bar & beat her belly with it. You were cringing but you were 9 years old.
And yes, you heard the cow moo-mooing in the barn at night, you left the house to check on her & I had tethered her so she could not move off the rope but one foot, all night. You tried to figure out how to remove the rope but I had it tied so many ways, so tight, so hard, you could not get it off. You brought her pieces & fruits to help relieve her discomfort.
ME: What kind of pleasure did it give you to kill the babies of Mitzi & to hurt that poor cow? What kind of a vile fukking scum were you?
MARIUS: Yes I was a vile scum. It relieved my anger, the way people lash out at someone, curse them out, beat them up, strangle, stab or kill them to relieve their own anger or hate, it was like that. Yes, I was a lowlife.
You ask did I want to kill my own child that was in your Mom’s womb? I wanted to get rid of the trouble it brought me, I was in a rage about how life turned a bad road after I got your Mom pregnant, like all Hell broke loose, & I was responsible for the farm halfway, & it was incredibly difficult to run things. I was exhausted, working regular jobs, two jobs once, & running the homestead.
ME: What about after that altercation where you were sent to live in the room behind the garage. I can still hear your piano reverberating in the winter, with the snow outside, you playing Church music, sounding like Bach’s Toccata in D {haha} & me bringing you your dinner from the house – enough for 3 men. You would give me $5 bucks {$48.80 today} to give Mom, a huge amount for that day. I felt so sorry for you with just an electric heater. I saw you cooking some soup on a hot plate still in the can. You must have been miserable. How did you feel at that time?
MARIUS: Like a miserable failure lowlife who got what he deserved. That is why I stood outside the windows crying,
“Let me see the infant, the infant, the infant,”
but Mom was too scared to let me into the house after I chased someone with a knife. {It was a female who lived with us who kept harassing him mercilessly & he snapped.}
ME: Would you have stabbed that lady had you caught her?
MARIUS: There is no telling what I might have done in my state. I was not getting enough sleep & she could have driven a saint insane.
ME: How about the time you all were drinking for Christmas. You had the baby in your lap. My Dad came to get her & said,
“Give me my child,”
And you said it was your child. He asked again but you would not give up the child – {it was time to be nursed.}
And Uncle Henry, {Paul Bunyan}, came into the kitchen where you were, & beat you up so badly, I recall you being under the table & chairs, & the day after when you came home from work I have never seen a face so black & blue & puffed out, it was scary. How did that affect you? Didn’t you want to leave our premises?
MARIUS: We were all drunk for Christmas. Yes, it was upsetting but your Mom persuaded me to stay.
THE PACT – MOM MARSHALLS HER LIETENANTS AGAINST ME
I was ten years old. For some reason I was sleeping on the pullout couch in the living room – I guess Dad had been there the night before – I would beg to sleep with him.
This room was fairly comfortable because we had a standup stove for wood or coal {we used coal} in it. The kitchen had an iron stove where we used wood or coal that we did our cooking & baking. The downstairs wasn’t too bad, except for the bathroom, which always had the door closed with no heat. We also had no hot water, so if you want to know how that feels, it’s MISERABLE. Try bathing without hot water in winter. Upstairs where the kids bedrooms were was coldest, my room being the farthest, was the worst. Under the feather covers it was fine, but when you had to get up or out, brrrrrrrhhhhh.
So now I am lying in that foldout couch in the living room & Mom is in the kitchen, where the table is far to the other end, by the back door. She & my brother & other members of the family were sitting at this table talking & for some reason they thought I was asleep & couldn’t hear – but I was not & heard every word.
It began with a harangue about how evil & uncontrollable I was – the manipulation begins. During some part of it I begin to cry, then sob, stifling myself so they won’t hear me. It becomes unbearable because EVERY WORD IS A LIE. At the end of this speech she says to the others that since I am UNCONTROLLABLE she NEEDS THEIR HELP. I can hear them even now agreeing with all their hearts that they will help Mom CONTROL ME & this was the beginning of OPEN SEASON ON RASA – from this day on not only Mom but her lieutenants abused ‘evil me.’ Think now, what could I have done at age 10 to deserve such punishment? My transgression? I loved my Dad.
I will channel my evil brother, Jimmy, & ask him, why did you agree to that pact to abuse me? You didn’t have to. My theatrical name for him is Rigoletto because he was a clown & a fool whose workings backfired on him.
JIM (RIGOLETTO): You were nothing to me, not important. Mom was important because she could bestow favors upon me, do nice things, love me more. Whether you loved me or not didn’t matter, you could despise me but you couldn’t do anything to me, you had no power. So hurting you to please Mom was easy.
JIM: Did you never feel you sinned by persecuting an innocent person? After all, we all went to Church, Catechism, & you were an altar boy. You heard the Word of God. Did you not feel ashamed for being as you were?
JIM: Your experience of religion was not my experience. I did not take it seriously, certainly not at that time. When I grew up, as an adult with family, when I mended some of my ways & experienced life, I thought about it a bit more. But until I was middle aged, God was not a big deal to me, or God’s ways, or God’s love, except to get the love that I wanted out of Mom.
ME: You revolt me. Despicable. You were really lucky you made it to Heaven, albeit to the lowest place, with Mom. Even talking to you now is unpleasant. You were a weakling & a coward, a fake & a charlatan, the way you treated me at school, pretending you didn’t know me when we passed each other in the hall. Are you going to tell me now you were a good guy?
JIM: I was not a good guy, I admit. I like your name for me, the clown/fool. Remember in the play Mom produced for our Church, I had a foolish part. I was a crow, & my only job was to say, ‘Crang, crang, bus maitos, crang crang, bus maitos’ which means ‘Caw, caw, there will be karma, caw, caw, there will be karma.’ It was a part any moron could place, the rest of the kids had respectable parts, some had intelligent speaking roles, but my role was moronic you thought – befitting me.
ME: OK enough from you, fly away black crow. And I apologize to the crows.
to be continued ……………………………………………………………………………………
