The Bloody Doors Off

I’ve been plagued by memories of early childhood of late.

A jigsaw puzzle but the pieces are all turned over so all you see is the cardboard. The only way you can see part of the picture is to match two pieces based entirely on shape, and only then do you turn over the interconnected bits to see.

Tonight turned up memories of parents’ less than amicable split in the ’70s. (Just figuring out the basic timeline makes me feel old.) Things are still fragmented; clearly not enough puzzle pieces have interlocked yet. I don’t remember when my father left.

Kicked out. He was kicked out.

He had a drinking problem.

He had a girlfriend problem.

I hadn’t learned these facts until much later in my life.

One second he was working all hours at a green-hued metal desk in their bedroom, taking booking requests for stagehands at various Toronto theatres, and calling people to give them a few days of back-breaking work loading and/or unloading travelling theatrical productions.

Aside. I remember that desk well. It was near the back wall, under the bedroom window. And it provided a fantastic place for a tiny me to find myself leaning against in the middle of the night during winter months as the furnace pumped out air directly below. That particular floor vent was the holy grail of places to toast my feet (second place was awarded to the wall vent in the kitchen, just inches from the kitchen table; our dog Brandy knew the sitch and would run there every time he heard the furnace click over). The compressed, hot air was (is) soothing for reasons I cannot put words to. We share a symbiotic relationship. It needed to provide me warmth and the bottoms of my feet needed to roast over the grill like 10 little marshmallows on a stick.

I couldn’t tell you when that desk disappeared.

All I remember were late night shouting matches, partly because my father had been kicked out (and hadn’t left voluntarily, as I learned later), with vitriol over his infidelity and drinking.

The cops were called.

At least once.

My bedroom was on the other side of the dining room, which was open to a seating area, with just a wall separating from the kitchen. You could hear everything from the front door. Or maybe he tried to enter through the side door; that would’ve placed them directly opposite to my room. My door was always closed back then. But I could hear everything.

And here is the point of tonight’s screed.

No one told me. What was going on. I was, what, in 4^th grade? (I remember a wellness check with the school nurse, but I think that was 5^th grade.) My point is, I recognized something was going on. My father, who I’d chosen as my hero when I understood what a hero was, was no longer living with us. No explanation was provided to me. No one spoke about his late night arrivals. Like the time police had been called to remove him from the premises. (Was there a restraining order? I have no fucking clue. NO ONE WOULD TELL ME.)

Only that fateful (cold?) night that my mum drove me (and only me) and simply said they were getting a divorce. And oh yeah, she bought me a Star Trek board game that night. I guess that was supposed to make me feel better.

So I have deep seated issues when something’s going on and I’m kept out of the loop. Which I think also fuels my need to write shit like this down and share it with the world writ large.

I can’t stand not knowing.

And the fucking puzzle pieces are a right bitch to assemble.