Here’s the irony. I could have moved back in with my family anytime we wanted to. We were victims of a toxic narcissist on a power trip. That happens a lot when you’re poor. You constantly run into other poor people who get a little authority and decide they’re Franco. The apartment manager outright lied and told my partner that Welfare and Section 8 would not allow me to live with my family. And we were so beaten down we didn’t even fact-check.
At least I got to visit during the weekends. Naturally, the manager made vague threats every time she saw me. “I hope you’re not staying long,” she would say, or “Section 8 doesn’t want you here.” This had the opposite effect she intended. My partner looks timid, but they don’t tolerate bullying. Those exchanges usually ended with my partner giving the manager a piece of their mind and the manager retreating with a confused look on her piggy little face.
As unpleasant as the manager could be, returning to my parents was worse. When I returned from the first weekend, Bob and Virginia were in rare form. They were terrified I was getting back with my partner. Virginia jogged in circles waving her arms, and my father glowered at me. “What did you do all weekend?” were the first words out of Virginia’s mouth. I assured them I had only spent the weekend to make sure the kids were alright.
That didn’t sit well with Virginia. She had given up on gaining control of “THE BABY” and had taken to having jealous fits every time he was mentioned. She and Bob wanted me back as their caregiver. I was the custodial child during high school. I did everything for them, shopped, paid bills, and even hid money so Virginia wouldn’t spend it all on cigarettes. They hated dealing with reality and wanted me to do it for them.
Growing up, they kept me dependent on them by ensuring I was always broke. And this started all the way back in preschool. If I got five bucks for my birthday, Virginia spent it on herself or brought me to Sears and ensured I spent it. I was not allowed money under any circumstances. I had to give my paycheck to Virginia during my first job. Times were terrible then, and I was proud to do it. But Virginia decided that was the law of the universe. She had the gall to forge my name on my paychecks and cash them herself. And that continued until I made my first escape.
Virginia wanted those days back. One day, she had the iron gall to suggest that I turn my entire paycheck over to her and come to her for my daily needs. I think I answered that one with a dirty look and walked away. Another time I overheard her saying to Bob, “all those years he’s been working, and I barely saw a dime.”
Four years later, I was sitting in my brother’s kitchen in San Francisco, and the memory flashed back with surprising vividness. I asked my brother, “how could I have possibly forgotten that?”
My brother replied, “there wasn’t enough room in your brain for sanity and Virginia.”
That pretty well summed up the next three months. I lived with a pair of crazy people, and humoring them was my go-to survival mechanism. I just let go of everything I couldn’t change and let it roll off like water off a duck’s arse. I never let them know I was already back with my partner; I might not have survived the shit storm. I told them I was spending the following weekend in New York. I came back Sunday night, and they had a conniption fit over me, not giving them a phone number where I could be reached.
One of my partner’s new friends at Blair House came up with a brilliant solution. I created a new girlfriend named “April.” If my partner needed to call me at my parents’ place, her friend would call and introduce herself as “April.” Then she would hand the phone over to my partner. It was hilarious. Virginia died a little every time I said, “love you very much,” before hanging up. She tried asking subtle questions about our relationship, and I would lie outrageously. Like, “April” didn’t have a telephone because she was an emergency room nurse and didn’t want to be called into work on the weekends. And I hit Virginia right in her faux-bourgeoisie snobbery by telling her that April grew up on the junkyard her parents owned.
Bob and Virginia knew better than to ask to meet April. I learned the folly of involving them in my love life back in middle school. They hadn’t even met my partner until we lived together for half a year. In fact, I kept a considerable distance between them and my life since I was in my middle teens. They had come to accept this, which shows how dysfunctional they had been as parents.
Since I stubbornly refused to return to being their keeper, Virginia used her other tricks to get control of my paycheck. Her main tactic was to self-destruct and demand I rescue her. She would cash a check without the funds to cover it, and I had to give her the money to prevent it from bouncing. I always fell for that one in high school. Other tricks included not having food money or money for the electric bill. In the past, I coughed up the cash like I was her personal ATM. She didn’t know what to do when I stopped reacting.
Virginia would bounce a check, and I told her I didn’t have the money. I usually blamed child support. It took a big bite out of my salary every week, but not as big as I led her to believe. Then she’d throw one of her patented temper tantrums, which always used to cause me panic attacks. But I knew about the stash of cash she kept at the bottom of her closet. So I stood firm and refused to give in. The next day she’d wail about the bounce fee, but I shrugged and said I couldn’t help her.
It would have worked if she played at silly buggers with the power bill, but Bob took care of that personally. He knew better than to trust Virginia with it. But Bob did add his own unique touches to the madness. I suspect he was the mastermind behind the mail order bride catalog, which we’ll be coming to shortly.
As you can imagine, my child support payments became the latest obsession. So Virginia had taken to formulating Lucy Ricardo-like plots to get me out of paying child support. She responded by accusing me of refusing to accept reality and stormed off. But I kept reminding her that I was not abandoning my kids, including the stepson she hated so much.
Dealing with those two was exhausting, and I wasn’t always on my A game. For instance, I was sorting through a box of books and found a brochure for a festival in Ohio.
“You went to Ohio!” she gasped in horror. Virginia was morbidly agoraphobic, and any indication that I traveled induced a hissy-fit.
“Not that time,” I replied, not really paying attention. I was trying to prevent a travel tantrum, so I got blindsided.
“According to this, somebody was there last July 1989,” Virginia said accusingly. The storm was brewing.
“I didn’t go,” I replied, hoping to avoid the tantrum by telling the truth. “My partner went with a friend, and I stayed behind for work.”
There was one of her silences that instantly grabbed my attention. Her eyes were closed, and her mouth moved. “Your son was born in April of 1990,” Virginia said. I knew that tone of voice too well. She had a cunning plan, and that never ended well for me.
“What of it?” I asked; my stomach turned cold and dropped to my testicles.
“Do the math, you idiot!” she explained. “He’s not your son! He’s somebody else’s kid! She slept with somebody at that festival and got knocked up! You shouldn’t have to pay child support!”
After months of “THE BABY” this, and THE BABY that, hearing that Dickensian lunatic call him “somebody else’s kid” made me feel like the walls were falling down on me. There was a rushing noise in my ears, and I felt dizzy. Virginia’s obvious delight only made things worse. I couldn’t do anything but gape as she raced down the short hall yelling, “Robert, Robert, he’s a little bastard!”
A school of thought teaches us we choose our parents between lives. I always considered that to be total bullshit. I can’t imagine any karmic lessons learned from being raised by those basket cases. I watched them come out of my father’s room. Virginia was doing jazz hands while Bob fist pumped. And all I could do was wonder what horrible sin I may have committed in the last life to deserve them. They must have been a karmic punishment for robbing widows and foreclosing on orphanages in one of my past lives.
I was opened-mouthed and speechless as Virginia outlined her cunning plan to rat-fuck her grandson. She wanted me to go to Welfare with that brochure and claim I had been cuckolded. Then, she figured, I’d be released from child support, and I could sue the county for the past payments. Then both of them dumped on my partner for being a scarlet woman and me for being a sucker.
“You are both out of your minds,” I told them after my voice returned. I choked on the first few attempts. “How often have you mentioned how much my son looks like my brother at that age?”
“You don’t owe her anything!” my mother replied. She didn’t have a logical answer, so she went into a rant. “You never got legally married; she an outsider. You don’t owe a thing to her, her brat, or the kid.”
I got the legally mandated DNA test results out of my backpack and handed them to her. “Read it and weep,” I told her. It was getting entirely out of hand, and I decided to end it right then and there.
She looked at it from several angles and handed it to my father. “I heard blood tests aren’t that accurate,” Virginia said hopefully.
“This isn’t a blood test; it’s a genetic test,” I replied as my father handed the paper back and shrugged. “They’re 100% accurate.”
“But it says 95%,” my mother argued.
“Look, the appeal is at the beginning of September,” I sighed. “I’m reasonably certain that I’ll get out of the child support order then,”
“And what if you don’t,” Virginia asked.
“Then I’ll appeal to Federal Court,” I replied. I wanted that conversation to end. It made me nauseous, and I needed to get away from them.
“And are you going to get any of that money back?” she demanded/hoped. Translation, “do I have any hope of getting my hands on it?”
“I doubt it,” I replied. As much as I resented that child support order, I preferred the money went to the goniffs in Warren County over Virginia.
This is the crap I had to put up with every day except on weekends. Otherwise, life was good. I didn’t have any luck finding a new job, but I got a promotion at the one I had. The regional manager invited me to join his full-time crew. Which meant I would be traveling with the circus. And when the Allentown show was finished, I’d be on my way to Arizona.
Spoiler, I never made it to Arizona. I would have missed my appeal hearing if I had left. This is just as well because I hate hot weather and Arizona. But suppose you had the choice between Arizona and living with Bob and Virginia. In that case, I bet you would pick Arizona too. My partner didn’t see it that way, and they were distraught that I planned to be an utterly absent dad. Which was just an important reason not to go.
Of course, I had to endure one of my mother’s “Bill is Traveling” tantrums, but my almost trip to Arizona positively affected my parents; it made them shut the hell up. I had gotten up and left before, and they realized how close they were pushing me. So they both avoided me for a few days.
I think they were catching wise about “April” and realizing that I was more likely to move back with my family than run away to join the circus. And once I was back with my family, there was no way I would go back to being their keeper. They were so desperate they put their heads together and came up with an idea that was so bizarre it still hurts my brain to remember it. They were going to buy me a wife from the Philippines.
Bob probably found an advertisement for Filipino Brides in Playboy. He was the first person I met who read Playboy for the articles. Then I got older and met other gay men. My father was so far in the closet he ordered take-out from Narnia. I think that’s why he married a woman 11 years older than he was. Virginia was his way of fooling himself that he was straight. He didn’t understand my attraction to my partner, who presented as female at the time. Bob assumed I was going back to my partner for the sex. So, he figured that if they could supply sex for me, I would stay with them and become the custodial son again.
He brought the advertisement to my mother’s attention. I think it took a little bit of argument for her to accept the idea. She had a creepy Jocasta Complex that gave me goose flesh. But I can’t see Virginia refusing the chance to get her very own slave. Besides, she would get to play sick games with my privacy.
I don’t understand why they thought I would go along with their madness. But Bob sent away for the mail order bride catalog, and they looked at it when I returned one Sunday night. They were at the table, not screaming at each other. That was unusual enough to get my attention. Virginia sat at the table, flipping through a magazine while Bob stared over her shoulder. And did I mention they were smiling at each other? So did the friendly greeting they gave me. That kicked my caution into the red zone.
“Hi,” I said and headed into the kitchen from the entrance they weren’t blocking.
“This is no good,” Virginia said in a heartbroken voice. “He’ll have to go to the Philippines to get married.”
“So he stays in the Philippines for a few days,” My father replied.
“What the hell are you talking about?” I asked. I couldn’t help myself. I figured a shit storm was brewing, and I wanted to get it over fast.
“But he’ll have to fly,” Virginia protested. She was morbidly phobic about flying, just as she was about anything else that involved leaving the house. But she got hold of herself and said, “I bet we can book him a round trip on a boat.”
“Why are you sending me to the Philippines?” I asked. Virginia was known to throw fits if I left the apartment for cigarettes. I couldn’t believe she wanted me to go all the way to the Philippines.
“We got this in the mail,” Bob said.
Virginia wore her death goddess grin as she handed it to me. Then they braced themselves like they were giving me something I wanted for my birthday. It was a mail-order bride catalog. It was just like the sorry websites that are sometimes advertised on Facebook. Only this was printed on cheap newspaper stock. And the ink was so cheap it was nearly running on the page.
I was numb while I looked at the details. To sum it up, for 5,000 US 1992 dollars, I could purchase any of the girls in the catalog. And there were about thirty pages of blurry photographs and little blurbs. They all announced they were good Christians who would be loyal until death does us part. Can you say human trafficking? I like the way you say that. And I wasn’t holding back laughter because I thought human trafficking is funny, but the idea that I’d go along with this was funnier than hell.
“I hate to rain on your parade, but I don’t have 5,000 dollars,” I said, tossing the catalog back on the table.
“Don’t worry about that; we’ll cover it for you; you can pay us back,” Virginia said quickly. I wondered how much money she had squirreled away in the bottom of her closet. My estimate rose to 5,000 dollars or more.
“Why do you think I’m going to the Philippines to get married?” I asked softly. The answer was obvious, they were both as crazy as emus on crank,
Virginia grinned and pointed to a picture in the catalog. “I think she’s very pretty,” she replied, avoiding the question.
I was forced to come to grips with how out-to-lunch those space cadets were. That was the moment I lost all hope for both of them. I still tried to include them in my family for the next three years, but I knew I was whistling past a graveyard. For all practical purposes, I was an orphan.
“Why don’t you take a look? Maybe you’ll see somebody you like,” my mother urged, handing back the catalog. Since I was curious, I took it to the sofa and thumbed through it while my parents stared at me like a pair of dogs expecting a treat.
I sipped my coffee and flipped through the catalog. It was deplorable! A couple of the women claimed university degrees. And they put themselves on the auction block. This was obviously white slavery, and it sickened me.
“You think I’m going to marry one of these women?” I asked them, and they responded with big smiles. “You really think I will willingly take a slow boat to Manila and come home married to one of these people?”
Their expressions of hopeful delight were more than I could handle. I burst out laughing. I think that must have been the best laugh I had since the gas leak. And the harder I laughed, the more the screwballs sunk into themselves. I laughed so hard I had to pee. When I returned, Bob and Virginia had retreated to their respective rooms. And they stopped bothering me. Virginia would occasionally ask about the catalog, but I always responded by laughing.
I took the catalog home to show my partner; they were appalled and didn’t see the humor. But as I said before, the catalog wasn’t funny, but Bob and Virginia were a hoot! The booklet eventually found its way to the office, where my coworkers were as amused and appalled as I was. In fact, my friend Jules was outraged and started to explain human trafficking. And I told him, “that’s why it’s so funny; my parents thought I was going to go for it.” The catalog stayed in the office until it disintegrated into forty pieces and got tossed out and forgotten.
The office closed by the second week in July; we had literally called everybody twice. Commissions had reached the bottom of the barrel, and I had no money saved for the layoff. The office wouldn’t reopen until October when we’d be selling tickets for the M. Charles Holiday Review. I had no unemployment, so I found a hidey-hole by telemarketing for the Olan Mills Studios. That was the lowest of the low, but it beat no income. I only worked there for a week before getting an old friend’s phone call.
I’ll call him Karl, even though that wasn’t even close to his real name. I met Karl while running my bookstore in Allentown, PA. He had just opened his own home improvement company and wanted me as his telemarketer. He hired me for his telemarketing room, and we hit it off and made a lot of money together. It took a little talking because I was still dreaming of Arizona, but I accepted and left Olan Mills that night.
The money was a lot better than M. Charles. My base salary was higher, and my commissions meatier. On top of that, it was so well located that I could get there by bus in the morning, and my partner could drive me back to Phillipsburg after work. They picked me up on Friday night and didn’t bring me back to Phillipsburg until Monday evening. So I had one less day with Bob and Virginia. That alone made the new job worth it. Of course, I had to let Virginia know I was making more money in my base, but I never mentioned the commissions. So my rent only went up to $80 a month.
Virginia never stopped trying to get money from me. A week before I left, I brought a paperback from the thrift shop next to the office. I came home and opened the book to read with my dinner. Virginia was in the kitchen getting her goodnight tea. I opened the book, and a hundred-dollar bill fluttered between the pages and landed on my lap. Virginia saw it. She moved towards me like it was pulling her on a string. I knew she would ruin the moment, so I consoled myself by folding it carefully and putting it in my wallet. Her eyes locked on my hand while I put my wallet back in my pocket.
“What are you going to do with it?” she asked.
“I don’t know; why?” I responded, picking up my mug and opening the book up again.
“Gerber’s selling special health insurance that only grandparents can open,” she said. “A hundred dollars will open the account, and from there on, it’s only ten dollars a month.”
The next day, I called Gerber Life in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. I was told Gerber didn’t sell health insurance by both offices, and they said they had never heard of such a bizarre policy.
Virginia even had the nerve to ask if I thought about Gerber Health Insurance. “There is no such thing,” I told her. “I called both the New Jersey and Pennsylvania offices. They deny having such a policy. Do you have a brochure or something I could look at?”
“The offer must have expired!” she said quickly and ducked back into her room, slamming the door.
Here’s the funny part. A friend had a room he rented for fifty bucks a week with laundry and breakfasts included. I set it all up except paying the hundred dollars but moved back in with my family. The hundred dollars was spent on a day trip for the family. That hundred dollars could have been first and last week’s rent on a new place.
Around the same time, I discovered the child support order had been canceled at the end of June. My former regional manager mailed me two weeks of child support and a letter explaining that payroll was slow in withdrawing the lien. And just like that, I was free. No more child support. It was gone without saying goodbye.
I would have waved that check over my head and danced around the room in any other place. But the last thing I needed was for Virginia to learn I had money. So I sat down and put my head between my knees to keep from exploding with joy. Then it occurred to me that something bloody weird was going on.
I called Warren County Child Support as soon as I hit work the next day. The guy on the phone confirmed that they ended my support payments but didn’t have any more information. Then I asked about the order or regulation that kept me from living with my partner. He replied that since there was no support order, I was no longer bound by child support regulations. I thanked him profusely, hung up, and wondered what the blue living hell was going on.
My partner received a letter from Welfare that had been delayed because it was mailed to the hotel room. Our toddler had been taken off Medicaid and food stamps as of September 1st because I was supporting my son directly. This was certainly news to me.
We went to the county courthouse before work the following Monday. First, we went to Welfare, and her worker denied having banned me from living with my family. He said all we needed to do was tell him I was moving back in so he could readjust the benefits. Since they were already adjusted, there weren’t any problems. For all he cared, I could have moved in the next minute.
Next, we went to the court clerk’s office to inquire about my appeal. The court clerk told us my appeal had been canceled due to the rescinded support order. They had sent me a letter about it. You didn’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to know that Virginia swiped the letter. Stealing official mail was the petty mischief she pulled to keep in practice. I was so angry at Virginia that I forgot to request a copy of the letter. This was such a huge mistake; I’m surprised Larry Marra didn’t crawl out of the grave to bitch-slap me. And not getting that letter did come back to bite me in the ass, but that story will be told in its place.
It was good that we were in Belvidere, where all the government offices were a short walk from Blair House. Finally, we went across the street to the County Section 8 office. The county section 8 office was in a row of blue wooden storefronts across from the courthouse. The women running it were the usual pair of Warren County matrons. Of course, the office was full of religious posters.
We told them what was happening and that I wanted to rejoin my family. And damned if that didn’t press their preaching button! We got a lecture about how god wanted me to be there for my kids. We waited for the sermon to wind down because it’s easier to let them get it out of their system than argue. We gently corrected them and told them we thought County Section 8 was keeping me from living with my family.
“Who said that?” one Section 8 worker asked.
“The apartment manager,” my partner replied.
“Where do you live?” the other asked.
“Blair House,” my partner replied.
The women’s shoulders slumped, and they rolled their eyes.
“Our office’s mission is to keep families together,” The first explained. “We certainly didn’t issue such an order.”
“Have you cleared it with Welfare?” the other asked as if she would cry if we said no. Her face dimpled when we said the benefits had already been adjusted.
“We’re just going to need you to sign a few forms and readjust your rent for next month, and you can move in today.”
This was the first and only time having Born Again Christians working in a public office ever worked out for me. In under fifteen minutes, it was done. The papers were signed, the rent adjusted, and I was only going to be twenty minutes late for work. Life was good.
I moved in the next day. I returned to my parent’s apartment that night and told them I had found a room near work. Bob wished me well, happy to be returning to his usual isolation. Virginia asked that I continue to send her my rent. Which I did not.
So here’s the story of how I ended up in Hillbilly Heaven, and it was a real hootenanny from the beginning to the end. For us, it was a beginning. We were leaving Welfare and Section 8 and all that shit behind. Blair House was going to be our launching pad. This was the year 1992, and George H.W. Bush was still president. This would change in November when William Jefferson Clinton became president. Blair House ceased to be our launching pad and became where we would fight for survival.
The Traumatic 90s 