Confessions, confusions and cars

Talking about California Ave in my previous post reminded me about the time I accidentally robbed the laundry mat. My sister and I, the one just a year and a half younger then I am, were walking north on California from our high school towards our house late on a Sunday evening very high as I recall. The bus stopped running or we had spent our bus money on dope or something but either way it wasn't really that far; just far enough to annoy you if you had to walk it. I'm still not even sure why we were walking since I always had a car. As a matter of fact my dad gave me a car at my sweet sixteen party. It was held in the basement banquet room of Bones Restaurant in Lincolnwood and the car was given to me as a big deal in front of everyone. The next day he took the keys back saying any teenager who smokes didn't deserve a car. I had smoked since I was 10. No, literally, I did really start at ten. I tried my first puff at four or five in pre-school from Mr. Mike. This I swear to you. My mom can confirm. (No he wasn’t fired, but he was yelled at firmly...hahaha!) I tried my second puff at about eight. My babysitter, now sister-in-law gave it to me to shut me up! I bought my own first pack at a vending machine outside a gas station on Touhy at ten. No, that was not a typo. That pack of Marlboro cost forty five cents and I was ten. No lie, no exaggeration. By the time I was eleven I was smoking about a half a pack and by eighth grade I was smoking a pack a day. How did I even find the time? I am wondering myself as I type. I quit at 18 and have never taken another drag.

When my dad took the blue 1980 Chevy Chevette away, I had smoked already for a few years but he had been aware of my habit for a good year at least at that point so to give me the car and take it away was just a cruel trick. He played a lot of those throughout my life. Look, he was a Chicago cop which would be enough to drive anyone a little wacky. Add to it the fact that he buried his first wife, who died of cancer, before she was 25 leaving him with an 11 day old, a two year old and a four year old and you can certainly understand he had issues. I didn't get it as a child as I was being beaten or lied to however I do now as an adult. I could have done without the strap to my bare bottom, the hand prints on my backside for days, full face fist punches, black eyes and bloody lips but I genuinely forgive him and am more sad that he didn’t know any other way to deal with his emotions. My scars have healed, well most of them, his have to be very deep even as a 73 year old man.

To help you piece the story together, my mom married my dad when my older sister, the one who was only 11 days old when her birthmother died, was two. My mom adopted all three of his kids. Together they then had me two years later and within three years of marriage had two more. My youngest brother came 6 years later as an attempt to save their marriage to bring the grand total to seven; two boys and five girls. You may think my mom was a saint but indeed, like us all, she has faults. She probably shouldn’t have married him the second time. Follow me now, this part is confusing. They were married and he strangled her in a fit of rage. They were divorced. She met up with him in public to get some papers from him and I was conceived out of wed-lock in a motel room. They’ve always just counted the original anniversary date in 1964 since I was born in 1965. I only found that story out when I was pregnant and single at 22 and my dad told me to have an abortion; not make the same mistake he made by “letting my mother keep the baby”. Yeah, he is an idiot but he’s my dad. The best part of it all is my siblings and I have always felt, lived and treated each other as 100% siblings and since they had been adopted by my mother legally and morally we are. Other people in our lives have tried to tarnish that. I’ve never understood why and we’ve never succumbed. We have all stuck together through thick and thin, through fourteen offspring and have stayed very close geographically as well as emotionally. (There will be lots of family stories to come!)

When my sister and I robbed the laundry mat it really was just a silly lttle mistake. We had just come upon the Chicago Public Library on California, when we looked across the street and saw a familiar brown hotrod parked outside the laundry mat and thought to ourselves, "What are Gary and that other guy doing in there so late?" We walked accross and stupidly tapped on the glass of the front door. "What the f**k? Get away!" We should have listened. "Hey what are you guys doing in there?" I yelled. "Shut the f**k up!!!!" "Isn't it closed now?" my sister asked innocently enough. They open the door and dragged us in. We were then told that since we saw what was going in we were already involved so we might as well help. Stoned and naïve, we believed them. They even said they would give us a ride home so we agreed. The guys had been having trouble with their heist. They were both too big to squeeze behind the coin machines to pull the money boxes out and dump the quarters yet they couldn’t get the door unlocked that would give them proper access. She and I slipped back with ease (that was I think the first and last time I slipped behind anything with ease!) and dumped those boxes full of change like professionals. They took the bag, we all ran out, the two of them jumped in the car and they sped off…of course without us. We did the crime, but didn’t get a dime or a ride. Needless to say we ran all the way home! We were more afraid now of being late for curfew and having to answer to our dad then we were of any other cops!