On the surface my mother appears saintly. She never drank, smoked, used any illegal drugs, and professes a profound faith in Catholicism. At the time I did not realize she disowned me, but her emotional viciousness speaks clearly to intent. Along with her favored son, my younger brother Festus, she sent me to Pilfer Pa’s wallet. Her Tomcat (Festus) hit pay dirt, while I came back with a box of condoms. My father had rolled over and I was too fearful to put them back under the mattress. Furious, my mother snatched the box away from me and had my older sister Maureen return them. It would seem after birthing eleven playthings, Agnes realized any more children may bare her ill health, risking a long life of executing her sociopathic musings.
Her first target was my dad, a Korean War Vet, whose father committed suicide. At the end of his life, he warned me of her true nature, but I was reluctant to accept it. So little did he trust her, he gave power of attorney to his sister. He best summarized the situation by saying, she de-balled me, but it will all come out in the wash.
Considering I was in the second grade when my mother had me lie to a priest, I’ve come to realize she is capable of anything. I was in service to the Mass as an altar boy along with my younger brother, Festus, when he insisted on being the cross bearer, although it was Newman’s turn.
It quickly became a contest of strength, as the two boys pulled with both hands for control over the divine implement. When the pipe organ began to play and there was no clear winner, I ran between them, snatching away their prize. Festus was frustrated, and during service he punched Newman, who snapped back with animal impulse, striking his antagonist to rage.
I was sitting between them, and upon witnessing the exchange, I stretched my arms between them to break things up. Alerted by the commotion, Father McKinnon looked over at us, and thought I was making fun of the Christ crucified. I became the fall guy for my brother, receiving both accolades and admonishments. Not that I invited or wanted to be in this situation… my mother insisted. I plead with my mother to no avail, her Tomcat (Festus) was on his last leg. Her only response to my pleas was Why did you involve yourself in the matter? and additional discipline from Jimmy for questioning her judgement.
Jimmy would be the decided instrument of her husband’s downfall, so he was allowed to hone his skills on me. In hopes of beating some manliness into femboy the bedwetter, he would piss on me as I slept, then pull me out of bed. A beating would ensue, or he would dry hump me saying If you are going to act like a femboy, I’m going to treat you like a femboy. On one occasion he came back with a red-hot butter knife intent on disfiguring me. I managed to pull away at the last second, at the cost of burning flesh off my arm. My pleas to my mother for a behavioral standard were dismissed. She was raising Jimmy to be the unimaginable monster whose violent, hyper-confrontational behavior would lead to the killing of Matthew Walker.
The gleeful torture of a broken man would begin when Jimmy was pitted against her husband in joyous conflicts. She would verbally berate my father, driving him from the house. Inevitably he would come home drunk and distraught over man’s inhumanity to man. My father’s inherent need to take on the weight of the world was just the personality flaw my mother was looking for in a man. Combined with the fact my father was raised to believe his dad was burning in hell, this Vet would be forced to combat the hell she would bring. Provoking his namesake to attack him, she would try to push our father over, with all her children chanting Drunken bum! Drunken bum! This was her alternative to getting my father the help he needed. One time she was injured, and it was the day we broke our father on our mother’s behalf.
The battle cry was Macushla’s hurt! Which meant the lines were broken, so we went to our fallback position upstairs. Mother and Jimmy quickly made it upstairs where at least one hundred shoes were deliberately placed. Distributing shoes from the hallway closet all of us began to whip them at our father. Some of the strikes were quite brutal given we had the high ground on the upstairs landing. Normally the rain of shoes kept him at bay, but on this night, he kept coming. I now view his behavior as a form of self-flagellation over my mother’s injury. Years later, he insisted she was struck as his arm swung wide, tripping over Jimmy.
A sense of desperation overwhelmed me as my father made it up the stairs, but my mother was a resourceful woman. She unleashed her daughter Maureen, The Roaring Radish. Upon her mother’s command she jumped down on his head, grabbing two handfuls of hair, as if an elf riding a giant into the ground, this dangerous little imp bit a piece of his ear off as they crashed onto the stairs. The reality of disfigurement shocked my father to departure, and a ghost of a man returned.
My mother’s place of birth has a motto Manliness and Truth, she held it in such disdain, branded on her heart is Maternity and Lies. She strategically deprived her children of all things’ material and emotional.
One time she strutted around in new clothes, flashing a Sears credit card to mesmerize her children to a state of obedience. She promised to take everyone out to Sears once a week in size order. In a typical act of cruelty, she skipped over me, deciding her Tomcat was more deserving. When my mother realized my spirit would not be broken, she began to manipulate me by exploiting my inherent need for stability. She began by repeatedly quoting The Prayer to St. Michael the Archangel, convincing me someday I would Lead the charge to gain the family stability I prayed for.
I pressed in and began delivering all three paper routes we had, when my older siblings would no longer help. Jimmy had been collecting from the customers and keeping all the money, not just the entitled small percentage of what is collected.
He was upset Maureen won a paper route contest by cheating. My older sister was brazen enough to go into people’s mailboxes to steal personal information and fill it out on a slip to enter them into the contest. Once again, I plead for a behavioral standard that fell on deaf ears. Years later, my mother would add to her list of woes the claim Maureen stole thousands of dollars from her through identity theft.
When the opportunity to walk a neighbor’s child to school arose, my mother picked Festus for the job. I could have used the money, and even felt I deserved it for my fruitless efforts delivering papers. I felt sorry for this kid, his father died shoveling snow, and his mom suffered from mental illness. I informed my mother, Festus was hitting the child and pulling this poor kid by the ear, on the way to school. However, I now realize this situation played to my mother’s favor. She enjoyed her Tomcat’s abuse of a child and tormenting a mentally ill woman, by mimicking and mocking her. She also encouraged her children to do the same.
The struggle for dominance played out for most of my childhood. Jimmy beat me so badly one time, I fled the house in the middle of winter. On the way out, one of the boots I grabbed was too small and I forced my foot into the boot, breaking the foot in the process. Frostbite set in, and due to this trauma, I lack a full range of motion in my foot. At the time of the injury my mother noticed I was throwing my foot in front of me, as I came down the stairs. She insisted I stop doing that. I suspect she did not want me doing it in public, for fear of scrutiny.
When beating me no longer provided Jimmy with satisfaction, he began to punch holes in the walls for attention. My mother in classic redirect began to inform my siblings I was an odd fellow claiming genius, when I responded to Jimmy’s acting out by writing poetry underneath the freshly punched holes. My mother found it offensive I was signing the poetry Rev. Pinky Badass. My younger siblings, Billy and Jean approached me. Billy claimed Mother insisted I was not a genius, to which I replied she’s right, I’m a creative genius. Billy smiled and laughed, and once again picked up a phrase I used. Jean began to mimic a priest collar, flipped out a pinky, then hit a body builders pose in solidarity of my actions. Their response to my comments infuriated my mother who now was labeling me a bad influence.
Billy and Jean were charismatic, in the purest sense of the word. Of all my mother’s eleven children, they possessed the spark of life that strangers would go to war for. A purity of life renewed that would turn the heart of the greatest cynic. Their charisma didn’t go unnoticed. Festus was extremely envious of how Billy or Jean could take a room just by walking in and smiling. He never gave them a moment of peace, his vampiric Ch’i sucking the life out of every moment of joy.
When puberty swept over Jimmy, he sat my youngest brother Bobby up on his knee with a pronounced erection in his pants and had him quote his teasing name over and over again. Pluck on what? Cherry-O. Who added on that Cherry-O? Mommy, would be Jimmy’s forced banter. Sadly, my little brother claims he was given alcohol and sexually abused at this time. Classically ill-informed regarding human sexuality, I jokingly exclaimed, Jimmy has a huge bonner! only to have my comment rebuked by my mother’s statement that I was disgusting.
Eventually my older siblings were driven from the house by me. I sharpened my mind and body, foolishly believing my mother had crafted me for justice. I was just a tool for her musings. I gladly contributed to the family monetarily and enforced my mother’s will. I felt I had stabilized the household to the best of my abilities, yet my mother still refused to establish any behavioral standards. When I had a good opportunity out of state I decided to move out. I didn’t know it at the time, but Bobby burned down the house for fear of Jimmy coming back and raping him.
I stayed home and redoubled my efforts. I began by reaching out to my brother Egg, who was more sensitive and creative than me, but his environment forged introverted proclivities. He would draw, philosophize, and I encouraged him to write poetry. His poetry was highly imaginative, abstract and took a sharp turn into madness.
Prior to his diagnosis as a paranoid schizophrenic, he accused me of trying to kill him. He pulled out a camouflage handled, hunting knife with a compass on top stating I’ll kill you first! I quickly disarmed him and tossed the knife into the wall, upon which Egg became fixated with my knife throw. I knew then he was genuinely disturbed. Festus saw this as an opportunity to weaponize Egg and convince my mother I would in fact kill my brother. My mother always insisted we keep things in-house, and if anyone called the cops, it was them who would be out on their ear. Then, for the first time in the history of the household she placed a restraining order against one of her children… me.
I was devastated. A friend let me stay at his house and I phoned my mother. No matter what I said, she chose to believe Festus. I thought perhaps I interpreted one of Egg’s poems as speaking to the inevitability of death. I provided an example of a misconstrued threat with such clarity; my friend informed me in overhearing my phone conversation he wanted to make sure I hadn’t threatened anyone.
Eventually, I left for California, taking advantage of a business opportunity. I began to establish myself when I got a call from the friend with whom I stayed. Unbeknownst to him, he built a basement apartment for my sister Maureen, with money from drugs she had ripped off, then sold. To compound matters, she was passing bad checks at local bars under my good name. I called my mother to get a feel for the situation. When I talked to my mother, she lamented the fact her Tomcat wouldn’t stop torturing Jean Marie, and no one would pay any rent. I asked my mother about Maureen moving back in, and sensing I knew something, she told me, Somehow, she built an apartment right under my nose. I brought up the subject of Egg, because I had been told he believed, The dogs next door were talking to him. She conceded there was something wrong with him, but he took off down South. I asked about the restraining order and my mom asked about rent. It was agreed she would lift the restraining order and in turn I would go heavy on the rent to help pay off debt Maureen had run up using my mother’s credit.
For the first time in my life my mother let me put her Tomcat in place. When his verbal abuses were ineffective against his siblings, he became physical irrespective of gender. When I arrived back home, Maureen was gone as per our agreement, and I had Festus give me a tour of the basement apartment with the intent of confronting him. He was trapped, I pushed him and said, I hear you like to hit girls. He squared up to hit me, but I sidestepped and delivered a spinning kick within inches of his jaw. He tried to unload on me, but held up owing to the fact I dropped into a T stance so low his set strikes were above me. Next time I hear of you hitting anyone, I’ll drop your bitch ass. I menacingly stated. This encounter held him in check, and for a time the family began to stabilize.
I reconnected with my siblings with whatever inspiration I could afford. My focus was primarily on Billy and Jean Marie. My mother claimed Jean was part of the problem and pondered why. I knew the answer, once again, my mother chose to neglect the needs of one of her children. Years earlier, Jeanie was pulled into a car by some evil freak who may have stuck his finger in her. There was blood on her dress, and vengeance in my heart. I wanted to look for the guy, but my mother insisted she would take care of everything. I’m not sure if the blood was from her hymen or the scratches on the inside of her thighs, but it was blood in the water for the shark that is Festus. My mother never got her the help she needed, nor did she even call the police to report it, yet blames Jean Marie for her acting out, when it was Festus sensing weakness aggravated my sister to insanity. This behavior was so distressing to me that I wrote the following poem.
Tar Field
What bodies buried or secrets revealed,
When I was a child, we called it Tar Field.
Words of the familiar a sword did it wield,
Our impious betrayers forced truth concealed.
A torn little dress scratches and blood haunt my seeing.
Precious child ripped from the frail state of being.
Probing hand contact question rings in her ear,
“Is it okay if I touch you here?”
Blood of her hymen an embarrassing smear,
Is how she began her seventh year.
A torn little dress scratches and blood haunt my seeing.
Beautiful optimism purged from her being.
Through the wickedness of one soul a fire baptized,
Precepts of contempt point to the erroneously prized.
A mother and her son are self-righteously disguised.
With the legion of many of which their ranks are comprised.
A torn little dress scratches and blood haunt my seeing.
Entomb with your remains all the memories you were fleeing.
The rumbling of gods rise and exclaim,
Does not our mother possess any shame?
Cold to the touch the problem child’s to blame,
For appearance above all is their only aim.
A torn little dress scratches and blood haunt my seeing.
The habitual twisting of flesh rips through my being.
Reflectional innocent the broken one dreamed,
In our ceremony of death, the forsaken redeemed.
The most ignoble of husks now to be esteemed,
From the narcissistic breast finally weaned.
What bodies buried or secrets concealed,
When I was a child, we played in Tar Field.
Returning home I paid off Maureen’s debt, and appeased a drug dealer, who I feared might requite for the sake of his reputation alone. To add to things, my brother Billy took a beating so bad he began to have headaches. When Billy mentioned the headaches, Festus would chime in You are a headache. Billy insisted I didn’t retaliate, because the guy who beat him up was sexually abused as a child and on a good day, they were friends. I rejected this notion to the extent I was going to fuck with this guy in the hopes he’d leave my family alone. It wasn’t the first time he’d injured a family member, so I played out a game of harassment with him. No one got hurt and he never fucked with my family again. I finally thought I was moving toward the peace and stability I believed most of us longed for, when another betrayal by my mother would lead me to a nervous breakdown.
I awoke to the screams of my mother. It was horrifying, sounding as if someone was trying to kill her. Flush with adrenaline I ran up two flights of stairs to discover Ling-Ling (a younger sister) beating up Jean Marie for using her make-up. My mom calmly walked past me, letting me know she was leaving, because she didn’t want to be late for church. I interpreted her screams as a Bat Signal and went into action.
Jean Marie was body-slammed to the ground as she was pulled off her bed by her hair, but doing her best to fend off Ling-Ling. I didn’t feel comfortable pulling Ling-Ling off her, she was so upset I feared she might attack me. Instead, I started by running two of my sisters out of the room with such ferocity, I feared they may never see me as anything more than an enforcer, when it was my intent to clear the room to minimize accidental injury.
I swept back into the room and placed myself in between the attack and Jean Maria scooping her off the ground. As I turned to face Ling-Ling she charged towards me. Instinct kicked in and I dropped to a T stance snapping off a paper jab to gauge the distance. The jab made minimal contact with her lips as she squared off against me. I’m sure she’s been kissed harder, nonetheless she furthered her rampage by calling the cops. Even though there was no damage to her lip, I was arrested. As it turns out my mom never lifted the restraining order, and the police had no choice but to arrest me. I spent the weekend in jail, the only time I've been in jail. I was crushed and emotionally drained. I place the greatest value on my freedom and wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize it. When I went to court for violating the restraining order, as I imagined, my sister Ling-Ling didn’t show up out of sheer embarrassment. Essentially, she was an adult beating up a minor for using her make-up. I explained the situation to the judge, and it was dismissed.
I was a broken man, and I engaged in self-destructive behavior driven by physically and emotional abuse that was compounded by a head injury I received while bicycle camping in Vermont.
I impulsively decided to walk across the country with little preparation, and now consider this a suicidal act that would have caused my death if not for a chance encounter. A simple inquiry to a stranger regarding the location of a bathroom led to the offer of food and shelter.
I spent the night at the men’s-home of a local church. I was now at a house that was filled with more members than bunk beds, however Toby offered me his bunk telling me, Pastor Jose Castro was playing with my cock as I slept, causing me to wake up. I took his bunk with the hope that something would happen, allowing me to direct my unsated rage, but my sleep was not disturbed.
The next day I made inquiries into Toby’s allegations but was told he was demon possessed and should never listen to him. I chose to continue expressing my concern which I believe helped lead to Jose Castro’s arrest and conviction for pedophilia.
A church split ensued, and I was swept up by a woman who convinced me our relationship was of God. Ironically, when I pressed the fact, I had mental health concerns she insisted I marry her by punching a hole in the wall triggering a landslide of memories furthering my nervous breakdown.
Eventually I returned home believing I was on a mission from God. Egg was finally getting the help he needed, but not until my youngest brother, Bobby, drove a knife into his chest, collapsing his lung. Once again, he was convinced someone was trying to kill him, and in keeping with his character Bobby did his best to live up to expectations.
One of the first things I noticed was Billy had a scar on his face. It turns out Billy’s headaches were caused by a brain tumor, and the scar was from a seizure that caused him to fall out of bed. Again, my mother allowed her children’s needs to go unmet. Egg could have died, Bobby went to jail, and if she didn’t so readily embrace lies to meet her needs Billy would be alive owing to the fact, I wanted him to get a CAT scan when the beating he took engendered headaches.
Billy’s prognosis was bad, eighteen to twenty-four months. Cut from the stones of Ireland herself, he fought for almost nine years, before succumbing to cancer. Prior to my brother’s death, he flew out from New Jersey to Colorado to give me a copy of his will. He wanted me to have his ashes and provided me with instructions on how they should be handled. In an act of callous indifference my mother justifies stealing my beloved brother’s corpse, denying his last wish, so that she could engage in a ritual to appease her supposed values. There are claims that he changed his will, but insistence I see a copy of the new will, have yet to be met. I suspect if there is a new will, the reason it hasn’t been produced is because the signature is not Billy’s, but that of a shell of what he was, having his hand pushed along the dotted line. Of my nine surviving siblings, none saw fit to contact me. This is clearly the work of my mother who’s the only one who holds sway over all of them.
Forcing further humiliation and lies on me, my mother insisted she called me when Billy died. I know this to be a lie, not only from the confirmation of siblings, but the resolved objectivity of phone records. My mother agreed to send out the ashes, setting her Tomcat to task and my spirit to grieve. He sent ashes in a cigar box so brittle it splintered during shipping, and the box was almost four pounds lighter than the indicated shipping weight. At best he’s guilty of mail fraud, at worst the improper handling of human remains. If it was Billy’s remains the bulk of his ashes were scattered from New Jersey to Alaska, in route to me.
After Billy died, I started to believe I’d never have a healthy relationship with any of my siblings. Then Jean called, and she reminded me of how I would take her and the other Munchkins (the collective name of my four youngest siblings) to The Woodbridge Mall. I knew she had been ill, and she told me she was getting worse. It was a good time in my life, so I flew to New Jersey, and we met at the mall. Initially we reminisced, but her conversation turned dark and somewhat conspiratorial.
Embarrassing rumors over how her pancreas was ruptured were going around, and she wanted to set the record straight. She also claimed Festus was stalking her, and the fight with Ling-Ling was now a feud of perpetual accusations. She wanted to go to war, but I told her my greater concern was her health, both mental and physical. I explained to her how you can’t medicate the thought of dying young out of existence. She got very upset and adopted an attitude of disbelief over the circumstances of her life.
I talked Jean Marie into a sit-down with my mother and my siblings in lieu of warfare. My mother insisted Jean was a problem child given to exaggeration. I did call to question some of the things she had to say, but Jean’s claim, Mom thinks you’re a psychopath to be avoided like the plague, rang true. This solidified my feelings regarding my disownment. In keeping with her behavior my mother suddenly balked at the timing of the sit-down, dismissing her daughter’s concerns. When Jeanie died, no one contacted me till after the funeral.
I moved to Alaska in 2006 to reconnect with my brother Bobby, hoping to provide emotional support and the sense of family he so desperately craved. He was acting out over the trauma of his youth by discharging his handgun in public and threatening suicide. Bobby was desperate to have a relationship with his mother and expressed concerns over the negative behavioral standards affecting his nieces and nephews. For almost ten years he reached out to other family members only to have his phone calls ignored, or if he was in town, have his feelings dismissed. We made one last effort for reconciliation with our family when my childhood sweetheart returned to my life, and we married in 2014.
My brother Bobby was the Best Man and what he wanted most was to get together with Father Douglas Milewski (our cousin) to have a moment of prayer and reconciliation in the hopes of salvaging a sense of family. My mother never submitted to reason or will, while her rationale knifed the very heart of my sensibilities. Knowing her true nature would be exposed Bobby was dismissed with You’re living in the past and You need to get over it comments. I suspect our mother is secretly pleased with the results of her dismissive comments, Bobby no longer lives in the past, he no longer lives.
On Thanksgiving 2015 Robert Francis Strappe took his life. As I grieve, I must now fully come to accept the fact my mother is a beast of unnatural proportion whose bile-filled soul is engorged through emotional filicide.