Chapter 1

For Jeanne

Meet The Family

You can’t dive into your past without acknowledging the people who helped to shape you, whether it was from a loving polish of the marvelous marble miracle that you are, or the harsh chiseling away of what you didn’t know you didn’t need.

I wouldn’t be who I am without all the freaks, manipulators, narcisissts, pedophiles, perverts, sex offenders, and psychopaths just as much as the true friends, the mentors and the loving people who drifted in and out of  my life. And what a more perfect place to start than with The Family.

Probably one of the weirdest things you find out when you grow up, is that when you live in a dysfunctional environment as a child you don’t notice that it’s dysfunctional. I guess on some level you know that it’s not like The Brady Bunch, but you don’t think about it, you adapt and that’s what I learned to do, adapt. I learned at a very early age when to shut the fuck up and when to fade into the wallpaper. I became a trained observer. I was shy because I was different. I was shy because I was terrified of what I could and could not say. It became easier to shut up and watch.

‘They’ used to say, “Oh little, Susie is so shy, she never says a word.” ‘They’ being the myriad of adults one comes across as you grow up. The ironic part of that adult reverberance is I have never been “little.” To me it was logical, I already look about 3 years older than I am, ‘why draw attention to yourself any more than you have to?’ And speaking leads to questions, and questions can sometime be unanswerable for a variety of reasons most of which terrified me. So, yes, little Susie is shy.

I met my grandparents on my father’s side when I was about 6 years old. Now you might think that I simply don’t remember them because I was too young and that my first memory of them was from 6 years old, but you’d be wrong. I had never met them and they had never met me.

I don’t remember the time of year or even how long the priming of the visit started. But I do remember how my sister and I were be grilled over and over by my father (yes there’s a reason why I say my father) about where we lived and where we went to school and it wasn’t where we actually lived and went to school, it wasn’t even in the same state.

I was born in Pontiac, Michigan but just as I turned 1 we moved into a house in Birmingham so I never knew the little shack in Waterford where I spent my first year of life.  I did spend time in the hell of Waterford later as I got older.

Now anyone who knows the Birmingham/Bloomfield area will think, “Wow, fancy, schmancy, neighorhood,” and it was, but we lived so far on the outskirts that if I crossed the street I was literally in another city, Troy.

There were train tracks that went through Birmingham (not sure if they still do) and we literally lived on the ‘wrong side of the tracks,’ cause the bougie-er Bloomfield Hills and Cranberry were on the money side. Not that my neighborhood would be deemed ghetto by any means; the deeper you went in the streets behind my house, the more money you would see. It’s just that we were only one step away from poor white trash and most, when they heard what street you lived on, would look at you that way.

So when my father sat us down and insisted we learn that we lived in Cincinnati, Ohio (I think) and we went to some school that I can’t remember the name of now, you can imagine how bewildered you are as kid, but this is where the adapt kicked in.

In my house my father was a huge figure, literally. He was a big man, German heritage, six feet tall, a typical squarehead as the saying goes. His haircut was square so that didn’t help. He was imposing but never violent with us. You just had this innate knowing that you don’t fuck with the guy. He had a temper but rarely was it used on anyone in our family. He did however use it with others, a lot.  No my father, Robert (Bob) was a psychopath, his game was with your mind. So when this guy says you live in Ohio, you live in Ohio.

I’ve seen pictures of what I looked like that day. Perfect blonde hair all curled. Pretty dress with black, patent, mary jane shoes. The epitome of sweet little girl. But that little girl was terrified she was gonna fuck up what she was told to say so she sat very quietly like she always did and watch. Watch whats going on in the room. Pay attention to the conversation but don’t let anyone notice you’re paying attention. That translated into coloring in a coloring book but listening to what’s being said and similiar activities.

I was showered with gifts at that first meeting and I think they even got something for my sister. You see my sister, Sharon, was seven years older than me and was from my mother’s first marriage that fell to that father’s alcholism, his name was Bob too. My mother was consistant.

Now when I say I was showered with gifts that is an understatement. It was weirdly uncomfortable getting as many as I did for absolutely no reason other than showing up, from people I have never met before.

I sat next to my sister on my Grandmother’s couch in their family room as my Grandmother admired me and cooed about how I was her first granddaughter and how thrilled she was.

Now there were others there as well. You see my Dad had two brothers who were twins and several years younger than him that still lived with their mother and father, my grandfather and grandmother. They were Dan and George and they will factor in later. The whole dynamic of the household felt off. Like why are these two grown men still living here? Even as a kid I knew it was weird.

My Grandfather, his name was George too, sat in his reclining chair and anytime he said anything, it was basically shot down in a way that made him shut up. Nothing overt or violent, just words. Well placed, targeted, words.

It was clear these people had money, maybe not a pile of it but with one Uncle working at Ford and the other at GM and not on the assembly line, they were c-suite types, they were certainly not hurting.

The house was a bungalow in a very Jewish neighborhood which I didn’t know at that point but figured out later when my Uncles decided to pretend to convert to Judaism in ritual only. Like they had a menorah and they both had yarmulkes but they were actually Catholic.

They had the latest of everything, appliances, furniture, and of course cars. And because one of them worked in research and development at Ford they had a lot of the latest appliances and even some prototypes out of R&D. Like they had the first microwave oven ever made. And Uncle George had the coolest T.V. that you would brush your hand in front of it to turn it on. And this was during the time where most people didn’t even have a color TV let alone something like that. And to a kid, it was awe inspiring; my love of gadgets was born wit that TV.

Now here’s the other issue with my Dad’s family, I wasn’t allowed to tell anyone they existed. So I would have to tell my best friend who lived next door to me that we were going to see, “friends.” She said to me decades later that anytime I would say that, the look on my face was one of dread and she instinctively knew not to ask who they were. And she’s right, she never did. I felt stupid saying, “I’m going to visit friends,” my god even I knew that was weak. But thankfully she never pushed me for more info that I couldn’t give her anyway. And yes this was my father’s rule.

To this day, I have no clue why they had to be kept in the dark because I don’t think it was more than two years and they knew where we were living in Birmingham. My father, as I would come to find out, was constantly running from the law. He wasn’t a common criminal but he’d get into stupid shit. There was one day when I was playing out in my backyard with my Barbie’s, it was a beautiful, hot, summer day, and a cop pulled up our driveway. I was behind the house and I heard my mother talking to him and it wasn’t a local cop it was a state trooper. I could tell by his hat when I peeked around the corner of the house. I couldn’t hear what my mother was saying but I heard the trooper. Apparently my father was pissed off that someone cut him off on the highway so he ran the guy off the road and threatened to turn their car over. I remember thinking, “I’m about sure, what are you the hulk?” But this is the type of stuff he’d do.

There was another time we were driving in the Lincoln, it’s Detroit, everyone had cars coming out of their ears, at one point we owned seven because my Dad was a master mechanic and would buy them and fix them up but rarely sell them.

So we were going somewhere, my Mom, Mollie, in the font passenger seat and me and my sister in the back. I loved that car cause it had automatic windows. Again, we’re talking the days of crank windows so it was magic to me. I’d sit back there and play with the buttons til I got yelled at.

Well I’m not paying attention at all but we pull up to a red light, my Dad gets out, my mother is yelling, “Bob STOP!,” and my Dad proceeded to walk up to the car in front of us and punch the driver in the face through the window, then get back in our car and just drive away like nothing. I believe that one cut him off too. He clearly had a thing about being cut off. Early road rage.

We grew up, my sister and I, in the shadow of paranoia. We were not only grilled on the occasion of seeing his parents for the first time but we were grilled on living, period. Now some of the things he would teach us was common sense stuff like, if someone calls don’t say you’re home alone (which we were, a lot), that sort of thing, but he would never let us answer the door unless we knew who it was. Now these days you’re probably thinking, no shit Sherlock, but back then you didn’t worry as much about who was at the door and there were a ton of door-to-door salesmen, Fuller Brush dude comes to mind. But my father didn’t want you even looking out the window. Just pretend you’re not there, unless it’s your friends or the neighbors which it usually was.

The secrecy and lies are what made me the quietest little girl you ever met. I wouldn’t say shit to anyone. I would sit quietly and watch and because I was the youngest of everyone, I grew up much too fast, just by hanging around with either adults or young adults. Even my best friend was three years older than me. And the thing was, I blended in perfectly. Why? Because I was big for my age.

God I hate that word, BIG. If I had a buck for every time I heard that I’d be living in Bermuda right now with a monkey butler. “Oh what a big girl.” “She’s such a big girl.” “Aren’t you a big girl?” No. Really? I hadn’t noticed. People can be so insanely stupid. But yes, I was a big girl. I stood a full head and shoulders above anyone in my kindergarten class. I looked like I was in grade two. And because I was big, I was also told I was fat. Looking back on old childhood photos once I realized how much I bought into that description, big and fat, yet I wasn’t fat at all. Big? Yes. Fat? No. And it stayed that way, with me towering over everyone at school until at least grade nine but by then I was living in Canada.

I was also very intuitive from a young age. I used to have to walk to school and it was a fair distance, maybe 15 blocks. Now again, this wasn’t a ghetto, it was a lovely walk filled with pretty houses on oak lined streets. And we had just learned about a program to help kids if they’re scared called Helping Hands. So participating homes would put this red hand poster in their window and if a child was in trouble they know they are safe at a house with a Helping Hand.  Thinking back on it now the whole thing was absurd. Anyone could register as a Helping Hand house with no background check. But then it was also the time when no one wore seatbelts so can we really be shocked?

I was walking home from school by myself, which I did quite often because again, everyone was older than me and it was a spring day.  I remember the sun was out and it was a really pretty afternoon. As I’m walking down the last block before my street, a blue car rolled up along the curb beside where I was walking. The car was filled with men, not teenagers, men. There was at least four of them and the one in front passenger seat opened his window and leaned out and said, “Hey little girl, you need a ride?”

My instincts kicked in as the car was slowing at the curb, and I scanned the street for these fucking Helping Hands. Not one to be seen, fabulous. So I said very casually, “No thanks I live right here,” and as I said that I started to walk up the front walkway of a house that luckily had a ton of bushes out the front that slightly obscured the front door and there was a screen door which came in handy. I walked up the steps and opened the screen door, then dropped down behind the bushes on the porch and watched to make sure the car kept going, my heart was beating out of my chest and I was trying to slow my breathing down and not move for fear they’d see me through the bushes. Eventually the car left but you could tell they didn’t believe that it was my house because they did wait for a bit. Which was why I was happy for the screen door, it made it look like I went into the house. I was also freaking out thinking, ‘my God if someone is home in this house right now I’ll look like I’m trying to break in,’ luckily no one was. As soon as I felt like they were long gone I ran the rest of the way home, got in the house and locked the door. And I was only six years old. This solidified in my mind that the world was an evil place and my Dad being paranoid, was right. And to this day my instincts have never failed me.