Terry comes charging through the front door spewing tears and rage. “Janet just broke up with me!” he howls. And with one long wave of his arm, he sweeps dozens of beer and wine bottles off the kitchen counter and sends them crashing to the floor. The party grinds to a cheap, ugly close.
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Add a land line phone and a black-and-white TV with a coat hanger for an antenna, and my décor was almost complete.
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Freedom with a Roof
At age 18 in January of our Senior year in high school my boyfriend Mike and I were chomping at the bit to get out on our own. We both grew up in Santa Clara Valley as the orchards were starting to disappear. We both had jobs in the tech industry of the Valley that was just beginning to be known for its silicon wafer/electronic/computer companies- way before the dot.com bubble most think of now. That ignited the passion for our own independence with wild dreams of partying, making grown up choices and shelter from our parent’s supervision. We found it hard to wait until summer when we would have the deposit money to begin our search.
We found the only housing that we could afford was mostly run down apartments and duplexes. Lots of no call backs, which we attributed to our youth and limited work history. We finally got an interview, and liked the location. I remember how excited I was when we went to meet the landlords. We had prepped each other to have the right answers to any questions that might arise. A buxom woman with gray streaks in her brown hair answered the door with a waft of Indian curry aromas floating out the door. She greeted us in a fragile quiet voice and introduced herself, waving toward the couch in the living room. The house had Hindu decorations, yet the woman was very white American. As her husband came into the room, she disappeared. He was a lanky Indian fellow with a mustache and strong odor of sweat. I glanced over at Mike, to see if he was going to make an inappropriate remark about it. He just grinned at me. The man introduced himself with a very heavy accent. All of his sentences were commands: “You will come see the place, now.” Or “You will sign the papers after.”
As he was speaking, a younger man came in with a violin and began to play. He was the son, and the family resemblance to Dad was obvious. As his playing got louder, our conversation got louder. Then the young man started playing the violin AT me. Smiling at me, he’d stoop over and bring the bow very close to me. I knew this would not go well with Mike, and right then he scooted over on the couch and put his arm around me and glared up at the son.
We soon followed Jarhid, the land lord, to look at the 4 plex where he was offering a first floor unit. My Dad had coached us to look, but to ask for time to think about it before signing any lease. Jarhid did not take kindly to that, and I thought we would lose the place for sure.
We went straight over to my folks’ house to tell them that we thought we had found the perfect place, but were using Dad’s wisdom to be cautious. Thank god. The next day my Dad came with us as we proudly showed him the dilapidated, weary place. He brought a clip board. He saw so many things that our naïveté and enthusiasm had hid from us, from broken back door to water stains on the ceiling, to a stand out of a stained carpet. We still thought it was perfect. We brought the list with us when we signed the paperwork, asking it be included as we all signed a 6 month lease. I remember feeling proud and accomplished.
We were FREE!! Family and friends donated to our mish-mash furniture and housewares. We had a giant puke orange couch with a stain on one corner, a donated TV that we called the acid TV because every few seconds a horizontal line would flip through the screen; we had unmatching dishes and utensils and towels and we were so happy. We splurged on a stereo system from the Flea Market, and now we were ready to rock!
This lasted through our first “Friendsgiving” were I forgot to take the plastic coating from around the innards out of the turkey before stuffing it, but we drank Harvey Wallbangers and smoked thai stick, and ate chips and appetizers, all in good cheer. Its now a fond and foundational memory of my battle with cooking.
At this point we had noticed the wife of the land lord, Phyllis came every 3 weeks or so to mow the lawn and check the garbage/garage area. Never the son or dad. She often had a black eye or bruises on her face and I was starting to really not like our landlord.
In a series of bad circumstances we had a month from hell. The apartment upstairs flooded and that stain gained new significance as the carpet smell now made sense as well. We couldn’t get him to fix the back door, or the lock to the bathroom that kept sticking. He just sent his wife with a rented carpet cleaner for clean up of threadbare and mildewing waste of time.
One night Mike was in the bathroom and I was sound asleep when I heard familiar rattling at the bathroom door. I got to the door and we began the dance with tools and turns and frustration building. Suddenly Mike yelled fiercely “Stand Back!” There was a loud crash as the door came off the hinges. Mike looked at me in a way that dared me to say something – but I knew better than that. He marched to his tool box, got out a pair of channel locks and wrenched the door knob off. He picked it up and began to walk out the door. “Where are you going? Nothing is open now,”I asked. He said through clenched teeth, “I am going to deliver this!” And with that he left, slamming the front door. When he returned later I asked what he had done. He said, “ I just took it over to the landlord’s house and knocked on the door, leaving it on the step.” It was 2 am. We never heard about it, and just adjusted to having no door knob on the bathroom door after Mike had got it back on its hinges.
I was working during the day, and going to school at night. My boyfriend was working swing shift. We started to feel like we only saw each other to deliver messages of the apartments decline and further failure to get the land lord to act. We decided to start to look for a new place. When we gave our notice, the landlord, in his typical fashion told us, “You cannot get your deposit back as you have destroyed the apartment.” And then Mike began to yell at him and he to Mike. I actually felt like laughing even though I should be pissed because Jarhid was yelling “You will not yell at me” as his face turned a deep purple and his eyes became wild”.
I pulled Mike away. We began our own relationship dance that would last for decades.
Eventually we got the first experience of taking someone to small claims court, with our 4 neighbors and getting awarded our deposit back, largely because of my dad’s insistence on that list. On the way out of the courtroom, we saw the landlord and his wife in the parking lot and he yelled “You are very bad people” to us. Mike started to run toward him, but Jarhid grabbed his wife and hid behind her. Mike laughed, turned around and threw over his shoulder- “We expect our check in the next week.” We got it.
I feel like the whole things was such a sweet adventure, even the late night wrestling to get out of the bathroom, and the other minor catastrophes. Up until my dad died 12 years ago, my husband Mike and I would always go to him about important decisions and to weigh our options. Family wisdom served us well.
My mother was still in a deep depression, too tranqed out on Miltowns to take care of me, much less plan a birthday party. Dad owned a car dealership; worked six days and two nights a week. He cared but just wasn’t there. We had been in the neighborhood 2 1/2 months and I didn’t have any friends except for the Pearlmans, two doors down. Ralph was my age and we were friendly, but boys and girls didn’t really socialize in 6th grade. I played a bit with his younger sister Nancy. Still in 4th grade, that was too big an age difference to consider being close friends. Yet, I was frequently sent over to their house, as my mother couldn’t deal with me.
Aunt Stella, mother’s sister from Cleveland had come in to care for my brother and me, as mother spent most of her time in bed. Stella and I would clash over my clothing choices. I noticed that the girls in my school no longer wore tights. They now wore knee socks. I was fighting for psychic survival and demanded to wear them too. She called me a spoiled brat and said knee socks weren’t warm enough in winter. She just didn’t understand.
My 11th birthday was December 10, 1963. Mother’s oldest sister, my Aunt Ann, lived in greater Detroit. She was very busy with her clubs and social life. She decided what sort of birthday party I should have. Having something at the house was out of the question and evidently I was too old for something with entertainment. So she decided on a luncheon at her city club, the Great Lakes Club, for me and a few girls from my class at school. Some had been generous and their mothers had me to their home for lunch during the month after the semester started but before our house (which we built) was finished and we moved in on October 1. Others were the queen bees of 6th grade society. So I’m sure Sara, Ruth, Kitty, and Julie were there.
The Featured photo shows me dressed for the luncheon. You can see the bad hair cut, pulled back with the little bow. Well-scrubbed face, before braces. I always took off my glasses for photos, but put cat’s eye glasses on for full effect. I liked my red velvet outfit, but it was hopelessly immature compared to what the other girls wore. And those dreaded tights and MaryJane shoes. I still look like a little girl, which I was. Due to overcrowding in the Detroit schools, I was only half-way through 5th grade in June, and skipped ahead, so was the youngest in my class. When I look at the 6th grade class photos, the other girls look so much more mature. Their mothers groomed them to be. My mother was in bed, oblivious to the world around her.
The other girls arrived at the Great Lakes Club and were greeted by my aunt, who was a superb hostess and knew how to make people feel at ease and carry on conversation. We were all seated at a round table and the girls chatted easily with one another and with my aunt. AND NO ONE SAID A WORD TO ME. DURING THE ENTIRE LUNCHEON. The party remains memorable to this day for that intractable sense of loneliness and isolation. The others didn’t even have good enough manners to pretend to care that the party was for me, the birthday girl. They totally ignored me. I was crushed and came away bitter from the entire experience. I don’t think I commented on it to my aunt. I thanked her for giving me such a nice luncheon. I knew she tried to make up to me what was missing in my life, but this wasn’t it.
So who betrayed me? The girls who couldn’t even pretend to be my friends for a few hours that Saturday afternoon? My mother’s mental health? Each of my aunts for failing to recognize how miserable I was and connect with that in any meaningful way? In some ways, all of the above, though I don’t blame my aunts, as they tried to do what they could to help out a lousy situation. And the mental health profession has come a long since 1963. Perhaps I betrayed myself for not being stronger and able to care for myself. I was a terribly shy, sensitive kid.
Now I fear that social media has made forms of bullying and isolating the less popular girls even more prevalent. The stories of girls who commit suicide because of social media pressure are everywhere. I wonder how I would have survived had I come of age in this era. People mature at vastly different rates. They don’t deserve to be mocked or isolated for that, but those are difficult lessons to learn when one is in the midst of it. It DOES get better, but it can be excruciating to live through, particularly without a strong mother figure or a few good friends.
I did make a friend that year. She and I would be friends for the rest of my years in the Royal Oak school system, but she wasn’t at that luncheon. By 8th grade I had a few friends and once into high school, the world opened up. It really did get better. I just had to hang on and live through it.
I spent a lifetime working to excel to attract praise, only now realizing that it is a substitute for the love and affection, which I so craved. The deep wounds healed, but I will always bear the scars.