More Early Childhood

My mother got married when I was six, but she started dating my stepfather when I was four.  I don't remember too much about him from before the marriage, really.  I guess he was around fairly often, but I only have two real memories of him.  One was him buying me Operation and playing it with me, telling me that it was one of his favorite games when he was young.  Back when my mother and I were still living with my grandparents, he and I would sit up in the attic loft that was my mother's room and play Operation.  I guess it was fun.  My other memory of him was up in that same attic loft and he had bought me some book... I think it was The Butter Battle Book.  I can't exactly remember.  But he read it to me and I guess at that point I thought he was pretty cool.  I must have been very young though because we were still living at my grandparents', which means that I hadn't yet turned 5.

Then she got married.  I was the ring bearer at the wedding and I remember being scared witless about screwing up.  It was held at St. Andrew's Church, the parish of my stepfather and his family.  (His family who, by the way, was made up of 13 children.  He was the oldest.  The youngest two, James and Joe were twins and only four years older than me.)  Most of his groomsmen were his brothers and some of his sisters were bridesmaids of my mother.  The wedding itself is pretty fuzzy.  The real fun doesn't come into play until the reception, when I had a mother-son dance to Sha-Boom, which I knew from my favorite movie, Clue.  The entire reception formed a circle to watch us dance to this song and I remember being a bit frustrated because I didn't want it to be just between the two of us, but thinking back on it now, I'm glad that it wasn't any other way.  It was the last time I really got to be with my mother as just the two of us.

At some point during the reception, I went missing.  I have no memories of this whatsoever, I was only recently told about this.  Apparently they had to form a search for me because everyone was panicked about my going missing.  They found me, having found a crawl space underneath the stage.  I was bawling, furious about... not her getting married.... but at having him as a father.  I don't particularly remember much about what I thought of him before the wedding, but if I was crying then, I'm not sure how to take it.

They went on their honeymoon to... Aruba, I think?  I honestly don't remember.  It doesn't matter, but my great-grandmother, Gigi, came to stay with me for the week they were gone.  Before they left, my mother gave me a special gift.  My favorite show at that time was Tiny Toons and I thought that Babs Bunny was just the greatest thing which ever existed.  She gave me a plush Babs before she left so that I wouldn't be too alone.

They were married in April '91, when I was in first grade.  That May, my grandparents took me and my uncle, Jaye, to Disney World.  It was probably the greatest vacation of my life to date, I would wager.  I remember crying hysterically on the King Kong ride at Universal, filming the "bee scene" from Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, and (for some godawful reason) riding the Small World ride.  I even think we went through the Hall of Presidents.  I dunno.  Maybe I made that up.

That trip ended and I came home to a new life with my mother and stepfather, Pat.  I remember being allowed to call him Pat, at least at first.  I think, in those early days, we simply tried to stay out of each other's way.  In those days, he had some sort of job... I think at the local GE plant.  I'm pretty sure that he and my grandfather kind of knew each other at work.  Pat had been a teacher at one point, a math teacher.  I don't know why he left it, but he was working at the GE plant for some time.  He wasn't home all that much in the beginning, I don't think.  My mother and I would have TGIF nights, watching Full House and playing Clue a lot.

At some point soon after that, my mother and I needed to start taking Catechism classes so we could be good Catholics and join the church of my stepfather.  I remember sitting in some back room of some church, it was very cold and very red.  Those days were the worst for me, sitting there, droning through stuff I didn't understand in the least.  I don't remember if we ever had a ceremony or anything, but at some point, we became Catholics.

We stayed out of each other's way for a while, but that didn't stop me from having a great deal of fear instilled in me.  Maybe I was too young at that point to notice a lot of things that were happening, but I remember being deathly afraid of him.  At one point, Pat and my mother decided to look for a house back in Erie and they would drop me off with my grandparents while they went house searching.  This was a secret for some reason and I was under strict orders not to tell my grandparents.  Well, naturally, I let it accidentally slip out.  I was a freaking kid, it shouldn't be surprising.  But I immediately realized my mistake and started hyperventilating, crying furiously.  I knew that I was in trouble for that one.

My grandparents were a huge influence on me during that time.  I stayed with them every weekend, it was nice to spend time with them, considering how much of an influence they were on me during my early years.  They also gave me a way to escape from Pat from time to time.  Naturally, I was a bit spoiled by them.  I was their first grandchild.  I had a great collection of games, toys, and books.  My room was always a bit messy, but I was a kid.  You know, it happens.  Well... we used to go to Myrtle Beach every summer.  My grandparents, my mother, me, sometimes my uncle, sometimes a cousin or two.

One summer, we went to Myrtle Beach.  Pat never came with us.  Well, I must have been about 8 at the time... but we came home and I went to my room... and I found that all of my toys were gone.  All the games, all of the toys, most of the books.  I guess that I hadn't cleaned my room to absolute perfection before I left on the trip and Pat, deciding that I had too much and was too spoiled, took it upon himself to liberate me of all of this.  So he cleaned my room for me and threw out all of my stuff.  Both Operation and Babs Bunny were victims of this purging.

I think as early as then, I knew I was fucked.