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Copyright Catcher78 All Rights Reserved
Author's note. This chapter sets up a longer story characters introduced and so forth. Nobody under the age of eighteen fucks in this true story. Any fucking is between adults and there is no glorification of sex. In this story sex is the cudgel that destroys a family. This story has been edited by challenger69 an approved Literotica editor
Nobody who had ever had both fresh caught steelhead versus salmon, so much more plentiful, would pick anything but steelhead. But, there were arguments to be made, concerning sub species, size a fish etc. or even mutant subspecies, such as white Chinooks and of course sockeye. It was all about fat content of course.
I grew up in the fifties, sixties and just a bit of the seventies. My next older brother and I would ride our bikes down the hill from the middle of Queen Anne Hill in Seattle towards the west, Magnolia's first hill and then skirt it along the canal (there's a man made canal that connects Puget Sound to Lake Washington via Salmon Bay, Lake Union and Portage Bay and the Montlake Cut) going past the government locks, where pleasure boats, fishing boats, World War II Liberty Ships which were baby freighters were let in and out of two different locks as the water was lowered from the level of the freshwater which was twenty feet higher than the salt water. (sorry that was a long one, sort of stream of consciousness, my mom was making me read Faulkner's Guns Of August, talk about run on sentences.
We'd get just past the locks and there was this place called "Petersen's" on the Magnolia side across from Ballard. It comprised about twenty four inch by twelve inch creosote soaked boards driven deep into the bank that sloped down towards what was the salt water side of the locks. Then there were two by twelve inch planks laid across the boards and if you got there early enough and paid five dollars you could get a spot.
So Lee paid his money and since I was seven I sat up on some grass and read. Most of the other fisherman were Norwegian, Petersen being Norwegian, the hated Swedish, like Crackers in the South hated black people. My mom's family was from, Western North Carolina, Georgia, Missouri and they were so poor, that having black people to hate on made them feel good. N-word dropped from mom's mouth (Elaine) and red nanny's mouth (Lola) was so common. N this, N that, N's knew their place, stepped into the street so I could walk by without them touching me. You'd have to understand Teddy (me).
If my Dad was there I was sent to my room and he threw my meal in the trash, as if I'd done something wrong, he wouldn't hit my mom in front of Red Nanny. I could never figure out why I'd get punished for what somebody else did, but I'd learned early enough and how to duck.
I was reading Steinbeck's Travels With Charley, which was a delight. I had two twenty four ounce cellophane bags of salted corn nuts which were crunchy, immensely flavorful and so salty. I had a twelve ounce bottle of RC Cola, which was five cents cheaper than real Coca Cola. It was late July that day, 1961, had my birthday party.
In the first of June Grandpa Bill, June tenth, Lee June eleventh and Hazel's June thirteenth (Hazel was my dad's mom and a professional baker).
When I was little my birthday got rolled into the party for them and Lee loved white cake with fucking coconut spilled all over it, oh yeah white fucking frosting too which after trying it I left the rest on my plate, which led to my first lecture on not wasting food, depression parents etc. I was three..
Well I hated all of that, threw a tantrum. Even now, since I have an eidetic memory I can see my two year old rage spill out. My dad's own rage spilled on to his face as well, his rage tell was him sticking his tongue out and he'd bite it.
I was four when I had my own first birthday party, chocolate cake, frosting, cake the whole shebang courtesy of Duncan Hines, nothing but the best!
Lee would fish using a spinning reel and a long pole, with a U-20 pink flat fish lure. The pole was not stout enough to cast due to the three homemade lead pyramid shaped weights that we made down in the basement. He would flip the bail on the Mitchel 400 reel and then gather the weights in his hand and throw them out into the middle of the channel and the lure would follow and somehow he knew when to flip the bail back so that the weights were just above the bottom and the lure would float maybe three feet above the weights.
There were lots of salmon coming into the locks too, but the steelhead would swim below them hoping to get some eggs prematurely dropped. The salmon would go through the locks into Lake Washington and then head south mostly and swim into the Cedar River where they would spawn their eggs which would be fertilized by some random male salmon.
On the other hand, the steelhead (which were sea run rainbow trout) would go in and out up to six times, the world record then was fifteen pounds or so. Lee would consistently bring home six to seven pound steelhead. My dad would prepare it since my mom purported to be allergic to fish. He'd lay the fish over hot coals in our barbecue, the kind with half a hood and three legs sticking out the bottom. Melted butter and Worcester sauce basted on top. Not high cuisine really, but far and away the best thing we'd ever eat.
Being part of a working poor family in a middle class area is like hiding right in front of everyone, I say this, because Billy, the oldest brother could do no wrong, no matter what, was doted on by Grandpa Bill and Grandma Hazel and Mom and Dad.
Grandma Lola on my mom's side, we called her Red Nanny because of her auburn hair. Before I was born Hazel was called Black Nanny for a couple of days encouraged by mom and Red Nanny.
Lee's productivity bringing home steelhead as well trout from hike's in the Cascades, speaking of which I got a four pound Dolley Varden when I was eight. It was called a trout, but was really a sub-species of the Arctic Char and I caught it on the Sauk River. Hardly fought at all. I was eight. Flesh was orange like a sockeye and it was worth two meals, my first time as a hero.
Lee made money mowing lawns all spring summer and fall. He had a beautiful girl friend Carol from the seventh grade on. Couple of his clients, one I know for sure Mrs. Wong a fifty something women of Chinese descent who owned a grocery store and a couple of store front businesses between Boston and Crockett streets on Queen Anne Avenue, taught Lee stuff about business.
He used some of his largesse to buy a Desoto Power Master six, that was the color of lime sherbet. He was in the eighth grade, would turn fourteen in early June.
Some dear woman who was part of the Queen Anne Hill Auxiliary Mother's CIA, reached out to Elaine (mom) and was wondering why Lee was parking this disgusting lime green car in front of her house. Her name was Mrs. Taulbee.
Ironically, she ran off with the milkman the next year as Chuck Taulbee and I listened to Miss Lee say sweet things to all the girls in our class.
After Lee's parade through Coe School, I was branded as a thug to be, so that plus she hated all the boys in class, and looking back men too. We all thought she was beautiful. Later in the year, at the Coe Carnival, I was seven, I told her she was beautiful and gave her a bouquet of dandelions.
Sorry, back to Lee and the lime green Desoto. He arrived home that night after Mrs. Taulbee's figurative SKUD missile landed in our household, undetonated.
Immediately set upon by Mom and Dad, we trudged the three blocks to fourth and Crockett. The engine was still ticking, like this primordial toad. Dad demanded the keys and got in the car and opened the glove box and found a bill of sale for two hundred and twenty five dollars and a registration from 1953. There were four doors with bench seats, Lee sat in the middle between Mom and dad. Dad revved it up and the beast roared. It had a two hundred fifty one cubic inch inline six cylinder engine with a Stromberg four barrel carburetor.
It was a manual transmission, three on the tree with a very throaty exhaust. Dad was driving a totally worn out 1957 two door Ford Ranch Wagon powered by a two hundred twenty three cubic inch six cylinder station wagon that needed a ring job (it would belch gray smoke when accelerated) and as he sat there revving it up it was as if Lee had figuratively cuckolded dad with this beast.
Of course I didn't know the meaning of the word, but Dad sure as fuck felt the rage.
Dad was never one for serving revenge cold. His furnace burned hot. After his death one of his best buddies Harvey McGlothlin (he had done a nickel for burglary, but was never caught again), who'd been a gunner on the B-24 when they got shut down near Trieste, in February of 1945, told me this story of how, despite a broken back he beat to death a Croatian Nazi with his fists, so that their position would not be discovered by using a gun.
We pulled up in front our place down from the corner of second west and Boston, phone Alder-2843. Out of the car up the eighteen cement steps and ten wooden steps into the house and within a minute Lee had another broken nose, fifth or sixth at that point, I'm still not sure and was stretched out cold on the kitchen floor. Dad called pal Harvey and left and drove to Harvey's and sold it for three hundred and fifty dollars and kept the money.
Two weeks later Lee left, once his black eyes had mostly opened up. He and a piece of shit Mike Sarrett who lived across the street from Lee's girlfriend Carol, went on a crime spree from Seattle to El Paso and most of the way back until fucking Sarrett drove into a ditch on a farmer's property near Roseburg, Oregon.
He ended up in the Seattle Youth Center for sixty days, which in those days was a holding pen for near and actual psychopaths that preyed on weaker kids. Lee at thirteen was a kid, Sarrett's outlook on life was changed and he looked forward to more time with his close friends.
Lee on the other hand had fought back and was bruised and battered and in shackles as he was brought in for a formal hearing in front of a Judge that tried juvenile cases. The hearing was a mere formality and the only thing that stood between Lee and time in a facility until he was eighteen was Mom.
The justice was this old, red faced man with white hair stretched across his red skinned skull. He said, "Who is here to represent this, and he paused looking at the paper work in front of him," John Lee Benedict
In 1960 mom was thirty six. She was five foot seven and weighed some one hundred and seventy pounds. She was wearing a green sleeveless dress that stuck to her like a wet tee shirt. I think it was the only one she had that fit. She had on some open toed black pumps and surely she was wearing silk stockings attached to her girdle. Red nails and vivid red lipstick. She was a member of Mensa as well as it was a place where she made friends.
She stood and said, "Your honor I am his mother and I stand here to represent him."
The justice said, dripping with condescension, "Ma'am, surely you know that these are complicated matters and lawyers study for years and then assist in these matters before they begin to represent criminals."
She walked towards his "bench", which was really a table on a raised platform of fifteen inches and putting her hand on his table and physically swaying her torso all at once, brushed her red hair back, with the other hand and said, "Your honor, I am a poor mother. All I do is take care of my sons," she turned and pointed at Billy, Lee and I and turned back, causing the justice to look down at her chest that she caught him, "I have nursed them all since their infancies. My husband is gone six days a week and it's me and a lonely mother will do anything for her children."
The justice was old but not dead and crossed his legs.
Mom continued, "My poor child has fallen under the influence of evil people and was caught due to the reprobate who passed out drunk driving near Roseburg and has since obviously come under the influence of Sodomites."
She turned and went back to Lee, in orange and shackles and stood behind him somehow framing his head with her bounteous breasts and said, "Isn't it obvious, while in this place of iniquity he has fought for his virtue, not giving into the sodomites," she turned and mashed Lee's face into her chest, and continued, "your honor please help me keep my son out of the hands of the fudge packers!"
The justice banged his gavel and said, "Madame!"
Mom moved up to his table and with her hands in front of her and said, "Your honor, I'm a simple mother, I don't know the right words, can you give me a better description?"
The justice and my mother stared into each other's eyes and then my mom's tongue snaked out to touch her lips and she bit her lip.
He said, "The boy is released to his mother, time served. Mother and son to my chambers, now."
Inside Lee was admonished that if he did anything so stupid again, he'd be tried as an adult. As Lee related the justice gave my mom a card and she glanced at it and put the card down into her bra. The justice said, "Boy you have no idea what your mother has done for you."
End of Steelhead versus Salmon Chapter one.
Steelhead versus Salmon Chapter two
Later we returned home Dad was extolling mom's performance in saving Lee from being a fudge packee, in which he would laugh, alone but unaware that nobody else was laughing. Mom would get cleaned up every Tuesday and go downtown to shop, looking for stuff for us. She'd say I'm going to the Bon Marche, Frederick and Nelson, Rhodes or maybe McDougald's. Getting on towards the end of summer it was Thursday, too.
I'd been up at the Recreation Center, that we called the Field House. There was a gym and rooms we could play ping pong. This was 1963, I led the Queen Anne little league in hitting, batting.475, with four home runs. I was big for my age. I walked home down the alley between Crockett and Boston streets, because there were grapes hangin over fences and they were sweet, Concorde grapes.
I came through the gate off the alley into our backyard next to the single car standalone garage. There were purple Italian plums hanging off the tree from the Armstrong's next door. I picked maybe thirty of them pulled out my tee shirt and carried them across the yard and into the kitchen, put them into the sink and rinsed them in cold water. I put some paper towels into an old colander and put them into the small fridge.
I left the back door open, there was a screen door and walked from the kitchen into the vestibule and opened the front door, there was a screen door there too. I made myself a peanut butter and blackberry preserves sandwich on pumpernickel rye sandwich with shaved iceberg lettuce and a big glass of milk and went out to the porch in front, which went from one side of the house to the other. This side was shielded from the sun by a mountain ash tree and some flowering bushes, we called a butterfly bush, had purple flowers kind of like a lilac tree, but different.
It was nice, there was a breeze, probably in the high seventies, perfectly nice day. I was thinking whether I should make another sandwich, when this black Cadillac two door sedan pulled in front of our house, driver's side to the curb. I didn't have to move to see it was the Justice from Lee's trial and then my mom had crawled on to his lap with her back against his chest and she was bouncing up and down, nobody was talking.
It was probably ten minutes or so when mom pitched forward and grabbed the steering wheel and in a minute the Justice stopped bouncing and was perfectly still, then kind of collapsed. Mom let go of the steering wheel and laid back against him and they kissed.
I'd forgotten about the sandwich, but I was nine and nobody'd explained what people did as grownups. I knew I'd just seen my mom kiss that man, while I'd never seen her kiss my dad ever. Nor could I recall her kissing my brothers or myself.
She got out the Cadillac and leaned in the window and kissed the Justice again. I thought to myself, somebody must be watching this, besides me.
She came up the cement stairs and onto the landing and then up the porch steps and stopped and looked towards me, I was maybe twenty feet away. She stared at me.
I said, "No luck shopping? That's twice this week."
She came towards me like a wolf, her right hand raised ready to drop me like Sonny Liston destroyed Floyd Patterson. I was off the end of the porch and landed next to the camellia bush and made great progress towards the field house.
I stayed away, first playing badminton in the gym, then I walked up towards St. Anne's staying on second west. Once I was past St. Anne's there was this little grocery, that sold candy to the kids getting out of the parochial school. I bought three bags of corn nuts for fifteen cents. I paid with a stolen quarter from Lee's dresser.
There was this park on highland drive, called Kerry Park overlooking Elliot Bay and lower Queen Anne and across to West Seattle. I sat and ate my corn nuts. There was a water fountain there, so I could wash down the nuts, crunchy and salty. I turned right or west I guess and walked past these huge mansions, three or four stories and gardens. There was another park as I got to the end of highland drive, it was enclosed by a fence called Parson's Memorial Gardens. There was color everywhere and there was a bathroom too, which by then was a critical need.
The road veered to the right and there stone barricades with lamp posts as I continued to walk. I leaned over and there was a street below with more mansions and cobblestone streets.
The sun was nearly at the top of the Olympic Mountains now and I headed home. I was going to catch hell for sure, dad would jump me. Mom would get him worked up, just like she did for Lee. On the side of our house was a little door, that opened on a landing between the first floor and the basement where Billy's bedroom was. I went down and into his bedroom, he must be upstairs watching television. There was a book shelf, with cowboy books and mysteries. I got a Richard S. Prather, mystery with the detective Shell Scott.
I closed Bill's door. He didn't have blankets, just old surplus sleeping bags, unzipped, they had wool linings. There was a light nailed to the wall and I read for a while and must have fallen asleep.
Next thing I knew, everyone was there and Billy said, "What are you doing here Skeezix (it was a nickname which, meant orphaned calf)?
"I had a late lunch went up to the fieldhouse and played badminton and wasn't hungry. So I came down here and read. Guess I fell asleep, " everyone except mom was smiling.
I went up to my room, there was a puny latch on the door and I closed it. I had sleeping bags too, so I laid down on the floor as far away from the door as I could. I was sure she would be loaded for bear in the morning.
Both Red Nanny and Hazel(Hazel was Dad's mom) I swear could make dirt taste good and have you asking for more. Poor sucks in the way of food choices. In the mid-1940s Red Nanny worked at the B-17 plant out on E. Marginal Way, she did rivets on the wings. She got a surplus card and there were these places, all across the city. Including lower Queen Anne Hill on first north, not far from the A&P grocery store, Hansen Sunbeam Bakery's day old store and the Warren Avenue Elementary School, oh and St. Paul Episcopal Church.
The surplus (food) stores were not like a grocery store. There were no refrigerated things. Canned, dried or powdered.
Canned provided an odd assortment of stuff. Peanut butter in a huge can that took a sturdy hand can opener to take the top off. Peanut oil sat on top. We had a hand held power drill, sunbeam if I remember correctly, with a huge three quarter inch drill bit and it would mix the solid ground peanuts with the peanut oil. Mom would add salt. That was the peak of the line and was consumed within days.
Big huge wheels of cheddar cheese, sharp or extra sharp, covered with red wax. The first half inch or so was dry and welded to the wax, now it might be aged cheddar, but it was thrown away.
Generally speaking everyone loved fried spam and it was appreciated as a specialty, but we got that at the A&P. Surplus store had this canned meat that was purple and oh so foul smelling. Mom fried some up in bacon grease and we had to open the doors to get the smell out. Lee vomited.
We had this table sat in the middle of the kitchen, floor was rough plank rounded fir floors and you had to keep your shoes on due to splinters. There was a meat grinder, the hand crank kind. Mom ground up some of the purple meat and mixed it with dry oats and ground beef and made meat loaf, poured ketchup all over the top of it, ketchup was an important commodity in our household as it covered a lot of her disasters.
At that point, I was six, meat loaf was beyond my pale, I would eat the fried potatoes with ketchup and iceberg salad dressed with mayonnaise which I pushed around, hoping for seconds on the fried potatoes. Nobody'd said anything to this point, calories were critical.
Out of nowhere, Billy sticks his fork up in the air and there is this three quarter inch cube of the purple meat, partially cooked and exclaimed, "I knew you were doing something with this bullshit cat meat, " he stood up and then Lee stood up and since I had Lee boxed in as I sat on the end I ended up on the floor as both Billy and Lee made their break towards the front door and out into the rain.
Dad said, "I was going to eat it all, but that's the foulest thing ever. Throw it out."
She nodded. I was able to get some more potatoes and headed up to my room, knowing a massacre was simmering under the surface. I fell asleep, but nothing happened.
She'd get in ruts food wise. We'd have the same thing on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday.
For the longest time on Sunday we'd have fried chicken and it was horrible at least my part of it which was the back. She'd got this recipe where she'd coat the chicken parts in corn flakes then cook on top of the stove in bacon grease. She never, ever got the fat hot enough so that the corn flakes would crisp up. They were soggy. I'd peel off the skin and eat the nub of meat on the front corner each side. There was a ribbon of good meat down the back bone. The pope's nose was always under cooked and rubbery and I would not touch it. Mashed potatoes with a salt and pepper and some butter made up the dinner for me.
We had this rule. The food was served family style on platters. Billy and dad sat opposite me, Lee to my left and mom at the head of the table.
Nobody could touch the food until my mom's butt was in her seat and then it would be dueling forks and one of the backs or two if I was lucky would be sitting on the platter.
This particular Sunday while the dreaded meat loaf was fresh in our minds, I jumped the gun, her ass must have been a millimeter off the chair and I stabbed one of the chunks of thick white breast meat and had it five inches from my plate when Lee grabbed my arm and shook the piece off my fork and it landed back in the chicken platter."
Mom said, "No cheating Teddy, you know the rules. Okay, I will sit down again."
She did and within seconds, there was one back left. I speared it and held it in the air and said, "All I ever get is the fucking back. There's no meat on the fucking back, " dad's face was red and he was biting his tongue, "sorry Dad, you can have it, you've only gotten ten pieces, no eleven."
Mom grabbed my fork and put the back on my plate and put some mashed potatoes on my plate, those had been mostly removed. I stared at Billy's shoulder and did not engage in conversation.
Mom said, "Eat your dinner Teddy."
I was unresponsive and after another ten minutes she said, "Go to your room."
Time approximate it was five thirty give or take. At seven or so Lassie was on the television, mom came up the stairs and came into my room and said, "You must come down and eat your dinner."
I did not. I could hear mom scream, "Don't Bill, "and then I could hear him thundering through the house and up the stairs. He was six foot two weighed two hundred and eighty pounds.
He came into my bedroom and yanked me up right and pulled my pajama bottoms down to my ankles and then dropped me and pulled out his belt and wrapped it in a loop around his right hand and proceeded to whip me. From my lower back, my butt the back of my thighs, I'm not sure how long it lasted but I did not cry, plenty of grunts of course. At some point I lost consciousness.
He had wrapped me up my sheets and a blanket and he walked into my room in the morning and said, "Get up and get ready for school. At some point I had pissed the bed and I was stuck to the sheets, the blood and piss had dried, I'm not really sure. He drove my brothers to the high school, the first week of school.
After they left mom came in and said, "Come on you have to go to school."
"I'm stuck to the sheets, I really hurt."
She tried to unravel me and stopped and ran to the bathroom and threw up.
There was a phone and in her bedroom and she called Red Nanny, "Bill hurt Teddy bad, he's stuck to the sheets with his blood, please come."
Seemed like forever but she was there and in charge, "Run a warm bath, but not hot. We need to cut as much of the sheets away. Do you have any gauze and Vaseline or Petroleum Jelly?"
Mom scurried around and could be heard in the linen closet and then the water was running in the old claw foot tub.
Red Nanny leaned in and asked, "Did he make you cry little guy?"
I said, "My eyes watered, but I did not cry."
"Good, don't give the fat bastard the satisfaction knowing he hurt you."
I was in the first grade at that point and mom carried me to the tub. They ran some more water in the tub and used sponges to soak the sheets and pulled them off bit by bit. Lee's room was down the hall and he had a double bed. They helped me walk to his room to his bed and laid me on my front side. They smothered my legs in the Petroleum Jelly and some sulfa powder, then wrapped gauze around my legs and taped it.
My butt was worst of all. They fashioned the Petroleum Jelly and powder again and then gauze pads. They cut up some sheets and wrapped them around my middle, like a skirt, I still had to go to the bathroom and tied it on my hip.
She brought me some milk and an aspirin and finally half a peanut butter and blackberry preserves sandwich.
Red Nanny said, "You get better and come up and see me Friday night. Okay?"
I nodded and started crying, just my tears.
She asked me, "Teddy why is there a hole in the wall paper and the plaster next to your bed?"
"At night I eat the plaster so I can sleep."
They went downstairs to the kitchen, I could hear them because there was a cold air return in the floor.
"Damn it Elaine, do you eat any greens, spinach or collards?
"No, just iceberg lettuce. Any vegetables?"
Red Nanny said, "He's got Pica, Lester and Perry got it during the depression, when your daddy disappeared."
"Bill doesn't like that."
Red Nanny said, "So, you let him cheat on you, then you have this beautiful boy and you're letting him kill him. Is Teddy his?"
"Yes he is, there's been nobody since he was lost in combat."
"If he touches this boy again, I will kill him."
I went to sleep on top of the comforter. When Bill and Lee got home they took my mattress downstairs and put it in the back yard. It was soaked in blood and piss.
Billy came up and carried me down stairs there was a peanut butter and orange marmalade sandwich and there were some cut up carrots and slices of cucumber and some milk.
I stood there and started to eat the cucumber slices, they tasted like water melon without the sugar and the carrots were so sweet.
Billy said, "Sit down bud."
I said, "I can't."
Mom said, "Come here Teddy, " I walked over to her and she pulled my tee shirt off over my head and turned my back to them."
"Jesus fucking Christ," said Lee.
"Teddy could you sit on a pillow, "asked Billy."
"I can't bend, there's scabs on my butt and legs, " I turned to look at mom and said, "I'm sorry, I caused this, I shouldn't have offered him the back."
Lee said, "You didn't cause this, he has beat me for years now and I guess it's your turn now."
"Mom, "I said, "I'm afraid he will hurt me again, can I go live with Red Nanny?"
She said, "He will be gone the rest of the week and you can see Red Nanny if you can walk to her place on Friday. Okay?"
End Steelhead versus Salmon part 2.
Coming soon, JFK is shot and Teddy is sent home part three."
Steelhead versus Salmon part three
Catcher78 All rights reserved.
Author's Note: This is a true story, my family and a few neighbors it deals with rank infidelity, physical abuse, prostitution, death, poverty and hunger.
We first met Teddy and his family, Mom (Elaine) Dad (Bill) Billy, Lee and Lola (Red Nanny his maternal grandmother) here:
Billy is an all-state football player for the Queen Anne Grizzlies in the fall of 1961 and gets a Congressional Appointment from Congressman Tom Pelly to the Air Force Academy.
In the fall of his freshman year he steps on a pop up sprinkler head on the football field in Colorado Springs, right knee is destroyed and the Air Force doctors butcher the operation and Billy has a giant blood clot. The Doctors call three days after the operation to alert my parents that it is likely that Billy will die in the next twenty four to thirty six hours. They suggest that they fly down to say good bye to Billy.
Elaine has ten dollars hidden in the baking powder can. Bill says he'll have some money on pay day which is Thursday, this is two a. m. Monday morning. Elaine questions Bill, "You eat breakfast and lunch and buy gas, where is that money?"
"That's for my work, " he said."
Quickly she pounced, "I already said what it's for, where in hell is it?"
His tongue was between his teeth, which was the signal that he was going to belt her.
Relentlessly she pressed on, "Who are you fucking now? Or is it the same bitch as before? She's more important than your oldest son?"
He was still eight inches taller than her and one hundred plus pounds of hard muscle coiled to unload as he glowered at her. Lee had disappeared weeks ago, so I sat on the stairs alone and then I was flying down the stairs and through the vestibule and threw myself around dad's legs and said, "Dad, that's Mom, please don't hurt her, " and hugged him as hard as I could.
"Teddy, " he said, "let go it's okay."
I stood up, my head against his stomach and he patted my head and turned and walked out of the room and out the front door and down the porch stairs and the cement stairs and got into his 1957 Ford Ranch Wagon. It was sky blue in color, two door, six cylinder, three on the tree and thoroughly beat to death and belched gray smoke, badly needing a ring job. He drove off and was gone for a week or so.
Somehow, Billy survived the crisis and just after the New Years, 1963, he received an honorable discharge from the Air Force and flew back to Seattle. My dad picked him up in the evening from SeaTac airport driving his relatively new 1961 Rambler Ambassador station wagon. It was a 327 V-8 with push button transmission, four doors. The body of the car was baby-shit brown with a cream top and a metal rack on top to tie things down.
Just as Dad and Billy came in the front door the phone rang. Mom answered it. It was the sheriff in Roseburg, Oregon. It was an eight hundred miles round trip. Billy and Dad went to get him. He was released into Dad's custody and my dad had to pay fifty dollars, with the promise Lee would show up for his hearing. I talked about that earlier.
I'm pretty sure the Justice and Mom were close the rest of her life.
In the third grade, as a nine year old, I won the batting championship for the Queen Anne League, hitting four fifty two. Better than all the twelve year olds. We went fishing up to the Northeastern part of the state, staying in a state park on Lake Osoyoos, Oroville, Washington. The land is part of the Okanogan Highlands and the town is nice. Cafes and fruit stands (Peaches, apricots, apples) we would buy crates of apples, kept in the cold part of our cellar. The moisture in the apples would evaporate and the sugar would concentrate and the apple pies and crisps were the best.
I started fourth grade in Mrs. Jacobsen's class. Silver haired, sharp tongued older woman. Far and away the best teacher I had in grade school. On November 22, 1963, the phone in our class rang and she answered it. She said, "Class take out some paper and draw, I'll be back in a few minutes."
A few minutes later she returned and said, "Class President Kennedy was assassinated today in Dallas, Texas. You are dismissed and go home, there will be no school the rest of the week."
It was a six block walk home. I was familiar with death, as Red Nanny (Lola) had passed last summer July 4th. She was only fifty nine.
I opened the door it was ten minutes after ten and I could hear talking and noise coming from upstairs. Mom was up in her bedroom talking to a man with a deep voice and then she was hollering.
I walked quietly into the front room. Kids were not normally allowed in there, but this felt like a special occasion so I sat on the green couch facing the stairs. That's when things got fascinating. The double bed literally bounced all the way back towards her huge walk in closet, then back across the room to the wall, twenty some feet back and forth and then the head board began to bang the wall.
I was reeling now, I could remember hearing both my grandmothers and my mom fighting about my dad cheating when I was one or so, I have an eidetic memory and now I was reeling badly, my mom seemed so pure and the best mom, but now she was worse than my dad, which I didn't think possible.
At eleven whoever Mel was he came down the stairs. Seeing me, he said, "Hi Teddy."
"Hi Mr. Wilson."
A few minutes later, tying a belt around a ratty bath robe, Mom came down the stairs with a cigarette in her mouth and said in a voice that was a cross between Lauren Bacal and Nina Simone, "What are you doing home?"
"They let us go an hour or so ago, Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas."
Her eyebrows shot upwards, she and Dad both were Nixon fans. Crooking her finger to follow her, she went into the dining room which we'd converted to a family room and turned on the television in time for us to hear Chet Huntley say, "At twelve ten central time the doctors at Parkland Memorial Hospital pronounced President Kennedy dead."
We sat for a few minutes as he talked on a phone with other reporters, forgetting that he was on camera, then he said, "There is a report of a policeman being shot dead, elsewhere in Dallas."
Mom said, "Are you hungry Teddy?"
I nodded yes. She got up and went into the kitchen and after a bit returned with two bologna sandwiches on Hansen Sunbeam white bread, with mustard and a glass of milk and wonder upon wonder some Fritos. She had three sandwiches and a cup of coffee.
She could eat, drink and smoke at the same time. I hated the smell of cigarettes and could not look at her as she did that.
"Teddy, turn the sound down, " I walked over and turned the knob back and the sound was gone and I walked back to my chair and half a sandwich.
"Mel and I are good friends, Dad would get very mad if you were to mention I was talking with Mr. Wilson."
"I recall listening to you, Hazel and Red Nanny argue about my dad cheating, when I was little and I drew all over the wall paper. I always knew he was a cheater, and now you are too.
I got up and put my stuff in the sink, no longer hungry and went up to my room and latched the door. I climbed up and opened the window from the top. I lay down on the floor underneath the two unfolded surplus sleeping bags and read the Richard S. Prather book Slab Happy, featuring private eye Shell Scott.
End Steelhead versus Salmon part three
Coming soon Steelhead versus Salmon part four,
Boeing almost fails, Mom pays the bills lying on her back.
Steelhead versus Salmon part four
Lee was in Thailand in the fall of 1968 assigned to a Strategic Air Command base on the coast of Thailand named U-Tapao. His rank was Technical Sergeant Lee and his now wife Carol had a little son Johnny. The Vietnamese War took a bad turn early in the spring of 1968. Phase one of the Tet Offensive began which was a coordinated attack of the NVA regulars and the Vietcong against every major city in South Vietnam as well as ARVIN and U. S. bases.
Lee's unit which was a squadron of B-52 Stratofortress's dropped more bombs from January to May than had been dropped in all of World War II. He described life at the base as living in bamboo hutches with three other Sergeant's. All week long this small stunningly beautiful woman would do their laundry, polish their boots, cook for them and fuck their brains out.
At first Lee thought she was twenty five years old, give or take, but one weekend she brought her three daughters and they fucked him using their hands, mouths, cunts, violating his ass hole. By Sunday that weekend Lee was solely with the mother. Her name was Anong. He called her Annie.
She stopped fucking the other Sergeants. They professed their love and soon Annie was with child. They were married in a Buddhist ceremony and their child was born, a baby girl named Lawan. She had reddish hair, which came from Elaine. Lee's squadron was extended another nine months and Annie was with child again. Lee was the happiest he'd ever been. Even though Carol wrote him every day, he would respond with short notes, once a week.
Finally, Lee's squadron was rotated back to Spokane and he was devasted. He could not bring Annie and Lawan home and Annie was six months pregnant. He was a full blown alcoholic and used pot to take off the edge off.
In Seattle the Boeing Company went from a payroll of one hundred and fifty thousand to forty five thousand. The company had gambled that they could build a Super Sonic Transport (SST) that would augment their commercial airliners which included the 707, 720-B, 727, 737 and 747. They were badly wrong. They had also been competing with for an Air Force bid on a fighter plane called the TFX in the Seattle press under Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, they lost to General Dynamics for what became known as the F-111 Aardvark.
Bill was selling insurance for John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance and was the district manager for the territories from the Ship Canal South to Tukwila. When Boeing employment plummeted Bill's commissions also sunk. He still made some commissions off of policy renewals. The trips to the Surplus Stores picked up, Mom still had a card for Red Nanny as her mail was forwarded to our home.
My little league All Star coach had a laundry truck, his name was Jim Smith. Our neighbors on the corner, the Mahugh's had a girl in my class, Pam. I couldn't look at her because I was so very shy and would blush. Pam would sit in the school library and lunch and chat with me, she had light reddish blond hair and seemingly unaware how beautiful she was. Somehow she got me to open up and we were friends. One day she said, "Teddy, do you know who Jim Smith is?"
I nodded and said, "His dad was my little league All Star coach."
Pam continued, and said, "My mom says his van is parked in front of your house four or five days a week."
I blushed and put my head on my hands and finally I looked up at her and said, "Can you keep a secret?"
She nodded yes.
"My parents fool around on each other. I was born due to an almost divorce make up."
She'd probably tell her mom, but I did not care if she did, but horrifically her mom died of leukemia a few months later. It was Friday the next morning and I had toast and bacon strips and milk the breakfast of champions. I had fifty cents for lunch in my pocket and out the front door I went to walk to Worth McLure Junior High.
However, I walked around the house and peaked in the kitchen window and thinking she must be upstairs I snuck in, then I heard mom talking to Bea Wilson, Mr. Wilson's ex-wife. She was a dental hygienist for Dr. Simkins who lived in Magnolia and was rocking his bony old world. Anyway, I snuck into the coat closet as I heard her say, "Jim is bigger than Bill and fucks my brains out, twice or more and, Jesus that's forty to sixty dollars right there daily, two hundred to three hundred a week and then Mrs. Gate's husband from Ryther. Jim's bringing by three guys at noon and she paused, " then "I know, he likes to watch."
"I made three thousand dollars and we were behind on the mortgage and I've been fucking those bankers for a year now, finally caught up and yesterday when Bill was out collecting after dinner they both fucked me in the ass and cunt at the same time. They gave me two hundred dollars and the older guy, Richard, said he'd fallen in love with me. I actually am thinking of leaving Bill, as much I enjoy getting my brains fucked out, I give him a blow job every night and go rinse my mouth with mouth wash and he's fucking asleep before I get back to bed."
She hung up and went upstairs and I heard the shower running and I went out the front door and ran to school and made it to home room, with the dipshit Mr. Meisner.
After school, I didn't go home any more as she sickened me. I played team flag football and basketball and then babe ruth in the spring. Summertime once the babe ruth season was over, I had two friends Ron Muir and John Hardies, who were in the class in front of me. I would be home for dinner and then disappear to my friend's homes. Ron's dad hated me with a passion, but Mrs. Muir was so nice and hugged me. Finally, one morning in the summer she asked if she could talk to me.
I nodded yes.
"What's going on at home Teddy?
I hung my head and started crying. I looked up and said, "My mom is a prostitute and pays our bills. My dad beats me and her, I stay away as much as possible. She is going to divorce my dad and marry this guy she's been making money off of."
She said, handing me a piece of paper and pen, "Write your phone number down. You should go home."
I went to the fieldhouse and played basketball against older guys and went up to Sam and Morris's on the corner of Queen Anne Avenue and Boston. I bought some corn nuts and an eight ounce bottle of Coca Cola and snuck two sandwiches into my underpants by my ass. I walked a block away and pulled the sandwiches in my front pockets. It was five thirty, I ate everything sitting in the dugout at Howe field by the field house.
I walked up second west to highland drive and watched the freighters come up to Harbor Island and the sunset, then I walked west down Highland Drive and crossed to the North side of the street and there was another park, Parson's Memorial Gardens, it was fenced and there was a bathroom. I had to go to the bathroom badly. I opened the door to the bathroom and there was a man fucking this guy in the ass. They didn't notice me. The guy getting fucked moaned and shot out this enormous stream of cum and then the guy just kept fucking the guy and I was mesmerized and the guy in front came again and it was just a dribble and finally the guy behind and he said, "I'm coming baby."
I slid back behind the bathroom and was as quiet as I could be. Finally they walked out and kissed and the guy in front says, "I love you so much, we can get an apartment on Capitol Hill by Group Health, there are a lot of queers there."
The other one said, "I filed for divorce, yesterday. I hired a lawyer who had an investigator who caught her having an affair with her boss. You can move into my home in a few months, there will be a restraining order, too. You can dress too all the time. Can you imagine sucking me off with lipstick on?"
They left. I'd never ever heard my parents say they loved each other, let alone my brothers and me.
Instead my mom was a whore and the only reason I was alive was because they only stayed together after my dad cheated on my mom. I remembered something Red Nanny said to Elaine, "Damn it Elaine, do you eat any greens, spinach or collards?
"No, just iceberg lettuce. Any vegetables?"
Red Nanny said, "He's got Pica, Lester and Perry got it during the depression, when your daddy disappeared."
"Bill doesn't like that."
Red Nanny said, "So, you let him cheat on you, then you have this beautiful boy and you're letting him kill him. Is Teddy his?"
"Yes he is, there's been nobody since he was lost in combat."
So there it was, She fucked around on him when he was shot down during World War Two. I started to think that she was the bad apple and he'd been reacting the whole time. Year's later Hazel told me the story and cleared things up for me. Right now, Hazel was in Phoenix with her second husband Leo and I had nowhere to go and If I went home now she would beat the shit out of me. I fell asleep and it was cold but I slept.
I woke up and the guy that was going to be wearing lip stick said, "Here baby, I made these for you, " he handed me two cinnamon rolls and then a cup of hot chocolate, "we knew you were watching, are you curious?"
I said, "My mom is a prostitute and I told my best friend's mom and she called my mom to tell her I knew and she's going to beat the shit out of me if I go home. My dad and her cheat on each other and he's beat the shit out of me and my brother Lee most of my life. If I get picked up by the cops I'll get put in the Youth Center. Last night you guys said you loved each other and my parents don't say that and nobody other than my grandmother who died when I was seven said that."
"I've thought of what it would be like to hang myself, actually I tried it with the blinds chord in my room, but they broke. There's a thirty aught six in the basement, but my arms are too short to old the trigger and put the barrel under my chin."
He said, "Come with me."
We walked up to St. Anne's Catholic Church and there was a convent for nuns and he knocked on the door at the convent and this nun opened the door and exclaimed, "Richard! How are you?"
"Sister Mary, This is Teddy, he really needs to talk to you, " she looked at him and he nodded.
"Who are you my son?"
"I am Teddy Benedict."
"Do you or your family attend St. Anne's?"
I said, "No, but I went to CCD so I could play CYO baseball, when I was ten."
She stood up and went over to a file cabinet and opened it up and after a few minutes, shut the cabinet. Returned and sat down.
Richard handed her a paper and that said tried to hang himself, thinks of suicide and peace, rifle is too big to get under his chin. Physical abuse whole life, mom is a prostitute and father cheats.
She said, "Richard, thanks for bringing Teddy here."
Richard stood up hugged me and he said, "Trust Sister Mary."
"Teddy, tell me what is going on."
I told her everything, even the stuff listening to Mom and Hazel and Red Nanny as a baby. Then I cried and cried.
"Teddy, do have any family friends that attend St. Anne's?"
I said, "Mr. and Mrs. Long."
She said, "Marian and John Long?"
I nodded yes.
She asked me for our home number and left the room.
Steelhead versus Salmon part five
The way junior high worked we had the same home room teacher for all three years. Mr. Meisner was this tall sort of lanky guy that had a Dick Nixon hair line with a little peninsula of hair surrounded by a bunch of skin. He wore hush puppy shoes and his cuffed pants were too long and he stepped on the cuffs with his heels when he walked with his heels tearing a hole in the pants above the cuffs. He wore the same pair of pants every fucking day. There was this stunningly beautiful girl, Katie Abrams, who was five foot eleven. That summer her breasts showed up. I had always liked her a lot, we sat next to each other as our last name initials were A & B.
I told her about my mom being a prostitute and how her friend Mrs. Long had called her and me being holed up in the convent. How Mrs. Long got me and brought me home. I told her in the car ride that she'd try to beat me before I could get to my room, told her about Lee and I getting beat up by Dad. She told me to wait in the car and she would get me after she'd talked to Mom.
Half hour later, she waved me in. Right inside the front door Mom tried to hug me. I pushed my arm out and said, "That would be the first hug, I've ever had from you. No pretending for Mrs. Long, " when she would get pissed I swear to God, her forehead would lay back, like she was experiencing white hot anger.
Keeping her away, I ran upstairs and locked the door to my bedroom.
Lunches cost seventy five cents at Worth McClure Junior High and they had everything from tuna sukiyaki on rice, to chili and cinnamon rolls with raisins. My best friend then was this guy Pete Elkins. Short little guy, but he could run like the wind and was a pole vaulter and played football and lacrosse. We were sitting, he had a sack lunch from home, which was bologna a cheese with mayo and carrot sticks. Mom kept open mayonnaise jars in the cupboards and when I was little gave me food poisoning from tuna salad sandwiches.
I was having hamburger blanket over mashed potatoes and canned green beans and carrots. This girl who I'd had classes with last year, Kathy Bertoldi, pulled out a chair and sat with us. For the eighth grade she looked like a woman, she was like half Philippine and half Italian. Her parents met in World War II.
"Teddy, unless your mom stops fucking my dad, my mom is going to divorce him. I have six brothers and sisters. I beg you to stop her."
She started crying and left our table. I was embarrassed and scared shitless, that somebody heard her, my face was on fire from my blushing.
Pete said, "what's going on Teddy?"
I looked around slowly, like I was looking for a lost friend, trying to tell if anyone had heard Kathy. I turned towards Pete and said, "My mom is a prostitute and that's how we eat and pay the mortgage. She's been fucking the two bankers from People's bank that come around to collect on the VA loan. She's been fucking people in the neighborhood for a long time.
When my dad was shot down in WWII, she got this telegram from the War Department and says she thought he was dead. She took up with a guy and they had two babies, then my dad showed up after walking a thousand miles with a broken back and they patched it all up. Or so he thought."
"She's been fucking Jim Smith's dad for a couple of years and he wants to marry her and so does one of the bankers."
"Mr. Smith is her pimp, he brings guys by in the morning."
"Teddy, you should talk to somebody, this is terrible."
"Okay, let's see if I tell my dad, he will beat my mom to death and probably me too. All my life either he or my brother Lee have ritually beat the shit out of me. When Lee left for the Air Force, the summer of 1965, I mean I loved him as both of us had had the shit kicked out of us by my dad and but not having him fuck me up is not something I miss."
I went on, "I did talk to a nun at St. Anne's about my mom. I can go and talk to her again I suppose."
I was hungry as fuck, but it was time to go to class. I played the bells, hand bells in an orchestra and the teacher's name is Mr. Fink. He looked like the bald guy on the Dick Van Dyke (Richard Deacon) show with the horned rim glasses and we met in the adjacent field house in a small room.
I had a high tenor and was going to join the chorus, but the first day in class in the seventh grade, the teacher Mrs. Hundley, who was black, came up behind me and pinched the back of arm as I was saying hi to Pete and drew blood. I jumped up and she tried to slap me in the face and I grabbed her hand and she kicked me. I pushed her away and grabbed my peechee and started to walk out of the classroom.
She said, "Don't you walk away from me boy, " and grabbed my wrist.
I pulled my hand away and said, "If you touch me again, I will beat the shit out of you."
I went downstairs to the first floor and went to the vice principal's office, Mr. Hedwall and just walked in. He did not know me. I was not a troublemaker.
I said, holding up my arm, "Mrs. Hundley just did this to me, " blood was dripping off my arm and I stepped up and put my foot on the chair and pulled my pants up to my knee and the skin was broken and there was a huge welt, "She did this too."
He said, "What did you do?"
"I turned and said hi to my best friend Pete Elkins who was sitting behind me."
He said, "That's it?"
I nodded.
Then the fucking woman was there, Mr. Hedwall stood up and said, "Felicia come in."
I stood up and said, "Keep her the fuck away from me, I have the right to defend myself and if she gets close to me I will do it."
He said, "Calm down Teddy."
"No I won't call my mom right now, "hoping she was between clients, or not at their house.
"Sir, I will dial the number for you. If not I will go home and call my dad from there and you really don't want him here. He will throw you through that window. Ask Mr. Arnhart, " Mr. Arnhart was the principal and had been Billy's coach in high school.
He left his office and the bitch was menacingly close with her fists clenched.
I yelled, "One step closer and I will bust your face and punt your skinny ass ten feet closer to the moon. Stay away from me you fucking bitch!"
Mr. Arnhart is a huge man, three bills and six foot four. He had his arms around her and marched her away and sent her back to her class.
Mom had been called and was in the room, acting like my mom and said, "What's going on Teddy?"
I told her.
She walked over and picked the phone off the cradle and dialed a number. "Bill, get up her now, God Damn it. To Teddy's school, He's been hurt by a teacher, no he'll live but they can't be touching our boy."
I put my head down and felt like I was going to get sick. Big Bill was there and he was looking at me and I showed my arm and leg and told him what happened and he stood up and he was biting his tongue and Mr. Arnhart was trying to call him down and then Mr. Hedwall got up in Dad's grill and put his hands on him and Mr. Arnhart was on his ass and Mr. Hedwall was thrown out the door and into the corridor.
Mom said, "Bill stop."
He did, he helped Mr. Arnhart up and dusted him off and apologized and said, "Son of bitch put his hands on me Warren."
They had got to know each other when Lee was attending a ninth grade dance at the fieldhouse. Dad, Mom and Mr. Arnhart had been chaperones at the dance and these two brothers, the Schickelgrubers came in and tried to take this gorgeous girl out of the dance and basically kidnap her. The fieldhouse supervisor this pencil necked, very nice man named Walt Smith tried to stop him and they beat the shit out of him in about thirty seconds and were dragging the girl towards their 1949 Chevy fastback.
Then Bill was there in all of his glory, he knocked down one of the Schickelgrubers and the other guy and the bigger Schickelgruber came rushing at Dad with a machete. He swung two or three times cutting up Dad's shirt and his chest and all of a sudden Dad had him in a bear hug and literally broke his back. Then, one of them conked dad in the head with a rock and he fell to the ground. A half a dozen men, chaperones all watched including Mr. Arnhart until my Dad was on the ground. Then Elaine was on the back of the little Schickelgruber scratching his face and was thrown violently onto her back.
Mr. Arnhart then kicked one of the men and they ran to their car and drove off. The girl was safe. Elaine had the wind knocked out of her, but was okay. Dad's head was bleeding badly.
The police showed up and were sort of nonchalantly talking to people and one of them came up to Dad and asked if he was alright.
Dad said, "Fuck alright, they tried to kidnap a girl beat the living shit out of Walt and tried to kill me with a machete and a rock, assaulted my wife who was trying to defend me from attack, why aren't you doing something?"
The cop said, "Will you press charges?"
"Hell yes."
Billy was at the bowling alley, which was three and a half blocks away and ran from there in time to see Dad talking to the cops and then turned and picked up Mom asking, "Are you okay?"
She smiled and said, "I'm okay, "then showing him her fingernails which were bloody, said, "I might have helped just a bit."
Mr. Arnhart bought Dad a new shirt the next week.
Today they were drinking coffee in his office and chuckling.
Mom was talking to a woman, who I did not know, it was the first day of school after all and she called me to come to her and I was there and she said to me, "You have to take music, will you take the hand bell's class?"
I shrugged yes, and so I was in an orchestra.
She grabbed my hand and we walked down to Mr. Arnhart's office.
She said, "Warren, Teddy is going to take bell's with Mr. Fink. I want a copy of a letter from you sent to the school district, reprimanding her for physically attacking my son. Secondly, I want a letter from you apologizing to Teddy and us for her actions and Mr. Hedwall for putting his hands on Bill. Okay?"
He said, "Both letters will be written and sent today to the district and we will mimeograph both and send them home in sealed envelopes with Teddy tonight."
She said, "One more thing, if she so much as looks at him cross-eyed, I will beat her. Are we clear?"
He nodded yes.
I said, "Mr. Arnhart, where am I supposed to go now?"
He said, "You're in World History with Mrs. Bradley."
End Steelhead Versus Salmon Part Five
When I was thirteen in the eighth grade, I was entirely linear. Well mostly, I stayed away from home as I could. My chores in the summer including mowing the yard, edging the curb and cleaning up the mess Mom would make from weeding her gardens. Dad was making money. So it seemed that she was off her back so to speak.
I was playing ball and doing well. It seems when you can hit, you play. Mom had stopped cooking her fried chicken, which I had not asked her to do, but was pleased. She'd buy packages of chicken and bake them. They were delightful.
She discovered round steak and Lipton dried onion soup. She would cut the steak into four inch by four inch squares, put them into the electric fry pan, brown them in bacon grease, then add the dried onion soup and water put the lid on and cook them for a couple of hours at two hundred degrees. Iceberg salad with cucumbers and Marie's Blue Cheese dressing, fried potatoes or baked potatoes and it was great. Sometimes she'd buy those rolls that came in the tube, you'd whack the tube and put them on the baking sheet, sometimes two tubes.
I'd eat the left over rolls with peanut butter and bacon in the morning. I read incessantly, John D. MacDonald mysteries, Hemingway short stories, especially Big Two Hearted River, with its imagery of the burnt landscape. Nick, the lead character was a soldier in World War One and he smoked and fished. It was identical to when Lee had returned in early March. He and Carol had a little boy, Johnny.
When he was in Thailand Carol lived with her mother Marian and her older sister Sandy. He owned a four door 1936 Ford sedan, with a flathead V-8. There was no AC, but you could push the front window open so that it would be parallel to the road. There was a three speed on the floor and it had mechanical brakes, which is to say they would not stop you. You had to double clutch up and down through the gears, so if you fucked that ups as you tried to slow down you were screwed. I'd polish the car as it sat in Marian's garage. Every few weeks.
He returned in early March and everyone was at SEATAC airport. Including Carol and Johnny and Marian and Sandy. When he left for Thailand he was five foot ten and one hundred and seventy five pounds. He was still five foot ten, but he weighed one hundred and forty five pounds. He would run alongside this tractor full of one thousand pound bombs as sort of a spotter.
We had a big dinner baked spaghetti, garlic bread, salad with hot house tomatoes and extra meatballs. No wine, but plenty of bourbon and seven up. He changed out of his uniform in his old bedroom and there were some clothes from when he loved there and he was wearing a shirt that was too big and some old jeans.
He yelled, "Teddy come here."
I ran upstairs and he had no shirt on and his back had all these white patches but the rest was so dark that he looked like he was Mexican. I said, "What's wrong with your back?"
He said, "The pigment in my skin got fucked up. Can I borrow a belt, " I had my cub scout belt, which was blue and it had the steel clasp in front where you pushed the tail through and I gave it to him.
The dinner was mostly good, I was trying to ask Lee a question, when Billy's wife, Shirley said, "The adults are talking, be quiet."
I stood up and said, "I don't know who the hell you think you are, but you're nothing to me. Don't ever talk to me again."
That was not received well. She stood up and tried to slap me and I grabbed the wrist and used it push her back into her seat.
She said, "Let go of me you're hurting me."
Billy stood up and said, "Teddy, knock it off."
I said, "The hell you say, you sit there and let her talk shit to me and you don't say a damn thing. She swings on me and you act like it's my fault. What in hell happened to you, " I let go of her wrist and I noticed a smirk on her face.
"Lee, I apologize for that, Mom, Dad, Mrs. Buckmiller."
I started to walk out of the kitchen and Billy said, "Teddy if you don't apologize to Shirley, I'm going to whip you."
I slowly turned and pulled off my long sleeve sweat shirt, I was five ten and weighed one eighty five.
I said, "Let's see who's on his back first, big fellow."
Dad stood up and put his hand on Billy's shoulder, who he was partial to and said, "Calm down Teddy."
"Let him go Dad, I'm not going to apologize to that cow so let's see him whip me."
Dad repeated himself, "Calm down Teddy, "he was biting his tongue now.
I said, "Holy shit Dad, you're going to beat me again? Hey folks, I was little, but here's the scars and I dropped my drawers and the hideous scars on my butt were visible."
I redressed real fast and said, "Fuck you Billy, watch your back, "I turned and walked down the hall and out the front door and went for a walk up the street to Kerry park. It was ten blocks and dark by the time I got there. I was watching a ferry boat come into Seattle from Bremerton and I heard this car come in behind me at the curb.
It was Lee, driving Mrs. Buckmiller's car. He yelled out the window, "Come on."
I walked to the passenger door and got in. He said, "What's got into you."
I said, "Whenever they come over and it's not very much, if I start to say something, she says that bullshit, be quiet the adults are talking. I'd had enough. She surely does not like me, and I have no idea why. I don't care, I had to stop it."
"Bill's going to kick your ass."
"He might try, but I'm way faster than him and you too for that matter. I'll tackle him and shinny up his body and head butt him. I'm way more worried about Dad killing me."
"I don't want to get into it now, but there is totally weird shit going on. They are both fucking around on each other. Girl came up to me in class and begged me to make Mom to stop fucking her dad, so her parents won't divorce. I can't go home during the day."
He pulled over to the curb and was starting to yell at me, but he saw I was crying. He said, "You're not lying are you."
I shook my head no.
He started the car up and did a U-turn and headed over to Mrs. Buckmiller's place. The walk to school was longer, but the breakfast included a small steak and three eggs and toast and fried apples. Mrs. Buckmiller gave me a dollar for lunch. Not sure if there was any communication between Mrs. Buckmiller and Mom, but after school I walked the block home and saw Mr. Smith's van parked out front. I walked around the house and went in the side door and snuck quietly up to the kitchen. I could hear several men's voices and Mom moaning. I made myself a cheese sandwich, just toast and butter and cheddar and lettuce. Glass of milk. I walked to the base of the stairs and shouted up, "Give her your big dick coach, she says she loves your dick and you too. Or are you watching other guy's fuck her. She told her friend you like to watch her get fucked."
He might be hung like a mule, but he was five foot six or seven and he came flying down the stairs and saw me in the front room and his fists raised and I kicked him in the nuts, hard. It was comical in a way. He stood there shaking with his mouth open and his face all red. So I did it again. It was a much easier target as he was not moving now, on the floor on his face and his eyes closed. I walked back into the hall and got my thirty six inch Louisville Slugger Nelson Fox, no knob bat and walked into the front room.
I said, "Who the fuck's next?"
The next guy was coach Smith's older son and he might have been the same height as his dad. He saw his dad lying on the floor and ran out the door.
"Two down one to go. Come on down and meet my friend Louie!"
Coach Smith was stirring, so I kicked him twice in the ass and bent down and whispered in his ear, "Stay down or I will really hurt you. If you ever come back here again, I will tell my dad about you."
I stood up and there was a tall, balding guy quietly coming down the stairs. I stepped away from Coach Smith as the man advanced on me. He had a leather covered sap in his right hand. He stepped towards me with his left foot as his upper torso twisted at the hips. I kicked his left shin as hard as I could and I heard it snap as he collapsed towards me and I jumped away.
He said, "I'm going to kill you, you little bastard, "as he started to struggle to his feet.
One hand was on the ground, so I stomped his hand and he screamed and I kicked the side of his face and he was out on the floor. I stomped his other hand and his hurt shin some more.
I thought to myself, "All is fair in love and war."
I looked up and Mom was staring at me. She said, "Who in hell are you?"
I said, "I'm the accident, who got used to having the shit beat out of me and you did nothing, nothing to stop it. I'm the son of a prostitute who fucks my friend's dads. The prostitute who will divorce my dad, so you can live with your pimp. That fucker said he was going to kill me. You're more worried that I hurt your meal ticket and his huge dick. Oh by the way you have jizz all over your face."
"Last night, you said nothing to that bitch Shirley and you wanted him to beat the shit out of me, just like you enjoyed Lee getting his ass kicked by Dad over and over again. "
"Last week, this girl came up to me in the lunchroom while I was eating lunch with Pete Elkins and begged me to get you to stop fucking her dad as his parents were going to get divorced if you don't. Do you fucking realize how sick you are?"
"Fucking go clean up, you're filthy."
I opened the front door and lugged Mr. bony head out by grabbing his collar. He was heavy. Coach Smith was not. His son was in the van. I went down the bank to him and said, "Get them in the car and get out of here. I'm calling the cops in ten minutes."
I sat on the porch and watched him, wake up his dad first and they both pulled Mr. bony head into the back of the van.
Coach Smith stop and stared at me, trying to look menacing from forty feet away.
I said, "You've got a choice, get divorced and marry her, or quit coming here. If I catch you here again, or hear from the neighbors that you've been here, I'll tell my dad and he'll beat you to death. You'll have to sneak up on me, but remember this I've spent all my life getting the shit beat out of me. It's not because I didn't know how to fight, I was just small. I will hear you coming long before you get to me."
Mom came out and said, "We have to talk."
I said, "Did you hear what I said to him, just now?"
She said, "Oh for God's sake, what did you say?"
"Here's exactly what I said, 'You've got a choice, get divorced and marry her, or quit coming here. If I catch you here again, or hear from the neighbors that you've been here, I'll tell my dad and he'll beat you to death. You'll have to sneak up on me, but remember this I've spent all my life getting the shit beat out of me. It's not because I didn't know how to fight, I was just small. I will hear you coming long before you get to me.'
"I'm so done with this shit. You better warn Bill that you saw me beat the shit out of two grown ass men. Tell him and you tell dad too, that I have accepted that my family never wanted me and I want all of you assholes to stay away from me."
Nobody talked to me. Lee had returned to Spokane with Carol and Johnny and they were stationed at Fairchild Air Force Base.
Bill stayed away, I joined them at dinner, what talk there was had to do with sports. My grades were good.
Mom had resumed playing bridge and was in four different groups two monthly groups and two bi-weekly. She never did get divorced. She had met somebody at her Mensa meeting.
Several of her friends were in one or all of the bridge groups and as the summer approached, they had won the annual pots for winning the most matches, or rubbers? I was clueless about the scoring.
They decided to celebrate and set up a trip on a baby cruise ship, the Princess Marguerite, which travelled between Seattle and Victoria, BC, Canada and had a three day party at the Empress, Royal Canadian Hotel. I was left to fend for myself. There were a dozen frozen turkey pot pies in the freezer, lots of eggs, bread and peanut butter and jam, one night I went up to arctic circle and bought a double order of fish and chips and three fourteen cent hamburgers. It was a feast. I had two games that weekend and did well and had two sandwiches of liverwurst, cheddar cheese, mustard and butter pickles.
Friday had also been the last day of the eighth grade. They got home Sunday night and seemed like they'd had a good time and were laughing. There was no mess so I was in the clear.
Something went bad wrong on Monday. I had a game out in Laurelhurst which was near the Children's Orthopedic Hospital. I got home about eight, Mom was in bed, dad was not home. They never missed games. I asked her about dinner and she mumbled to fix something.
By Thursday, we were running out of food and she was not eating. I went into her room and asked her if she was okay. She slowly turned from her side in the bed and sat up. Both of her eyes were swollen shut and her face was yellow and purple.
She said, "Help me to the bathroom. Bring me a glass of water."
I did that. She took a shower and put on some different clothes.
"Teddy, you have to help me walk up to Dr. Vanneman's office, I'm hurt really bad. Your dad did this because I fucked three of his friends in Victoria. He's been having a long affair with this woman in his office. No more questions."
The journey was two blocks and took a long time. When we got there, the receptionist who was my mom's friend that I did not know about, as was the doctor.
There were X-Rays and examinations. She had a concussion, two broken ribs and a cracked skull.
Dr. Vanneman called my dad, who worked at his office on Roy Street across from The Chinese Gourmet restaurant.
I figured that out, because Dad burst through the door, looking menacing, a cauldron of simmering violence. Dr. Vanneman came through a door and stared at Dad. He said, pointing at a chair, "Sit down, now."
He went on and began to recite her injuries, "Broken skull, concussion, cracked orbital bone, three broken ribs dehydrated, inability to breath has induced pneumonia. She has lost fifteen pounds since she was here three weeks ago, due to her inability to eat. Oh two molars are gone too."
"You're rage seems misplaced. You've been fucking Erlene for some time now, so it seems fair for her to get laid, she had an itch to scratch."
"Now listen closely, you will carefully take her home, then go to Safeway or Thriftway and buy groceries, bring them home so that they can eat. Buy her pieces of chicken, celery, carrots, onions and potatoes and cook them slowly in water to make a stew.. Greens, spinach, squash, roast them all. Do you hear me?"
Dad nodded.
The Doctor continued, "If you've been with Erlene, stop it, don't leave them alone. I will call in the morning to see if you did all of this. If you have not it all goes to my brother who is an assistant district attorney for the city of Seattle. Is that clear?"
Mom walked through door to the examination rooms slowly and sat down next to me.
Dad was visibly startled to see her face and her slow carriage.
The Doctor said, "Big tough guy aren't you? You even twitch I'll shoot you, "he had a M1911A1 forty five caliber pistol in his hand and cocked the weapon.
You could hear a pin drop.
Dad said, "Elaine you want to do what he said?"
She looked over at him and nodded.
"I have to get my car out of the Shell station. Teddy help her out to the curb."
He stood up and walked out of the office. I don't think he was afraid of getting shot again. We proceeded to Safeway which was just behind the Doctor's building. She sat in the car and I helped him shop. I made sure we got other stuff that was normal in our weekly rotation.
He parked in the alley and she made it in on his arm and then up the stairs to their bedroom and I could hear them talking. I made the soup. I had it going in about twenty minutes or so. I made myself a toasted cheese sandwich using pumpernickel rye, which made a huge sandwich.
In a couple of hours the soup was almost done. I took the chicken pieces out and shredded them and put them back in and I put some in bowl and brought it up stairs with some saltines. She had her eyes closed but was awake.
She said, "Bring that back downstairs I will eat at the table."
I said, "Do you want some Dad?"
He said, "No, I will have some kippered snacks and crackers."
I brought the soup downstairs and she was there shortly, I made another sandwich and soon we all sat quietly eating.
She got better and everything seemed to get better, bit by bit. She was banned from all the bridge clubs, but didn't seem to miss it. She took up going to St. Vincent de Paul and the Salvation Army stores looking for old painted on chests and would refinish them. I enjoyed the peace and school and sports were great.
End Steelhead versus Salmon part six
Memorial day, I was in the ninth grade, Billy, Lee and I went fishing up the Sol Duc river to get some spring run, chinook salmon and maybe even some steelheads following the chinooks.
Lee had this 1965 Ford Galaxie station wagon, sky blue in color, with a big block V-8. He said it was a three ninety, but Pete Elkins who's step dad had one said it was a three fifty two. It was the best car I'd ever ridden in, powerful, smooth, good stiff suspension. Most of dad's cars felt like you were rolling around in the back seat of a car with a four hundred pound women and experiencing gravitational forces.
Dad was selling insurance and life was good. I had steak for the first time, round steak cooked in Mom's electric fry pan. She'd cut it up into squares of about four inches, probably an inch to inch and a half thick. She'd brown it in bacon grease and then put Lipton's dried onion soup over the squares and pour in water and set the heat at two hundred fifty for four hours. She'd buy Gai's Brothers French bread from the Hansen Sunbeam commercial bakery, day old shop and make garlic bread. Slice up beef steak tomatoes and cucumbers with Marie's Blue Cheese dressing and fried potatoes.
I'd make an open faced sandwich with the garlic bread and the tomatoes and the cucumber salad. Ketchup on the fried potatoes. There'd be enough for a couple of days.
Billy, Lee and I took a trip towards the Olympic Peninsula over Memorial day 1969. It was spring of the ninth grade. I was fourteen, Lee was twenty two, Billy was twenty five, Mom was forty five and dad was forty eight. Billy's birthday was January 27, 1944. He was born in Greenview Texas which is North East of Dallas at an Army Air Corp multi engine training base.
The last time we had a trip, just the three of us together was in the summer of 1965 and we had gone out the coast of the State of Washington.
This trip was different, there was the overhang of the violence between Bill and I and Lee was instigating. Bill was jittery, I did not give a shit about fighting him or Lee, I was stronger and faster than both and at this point I had my own rage to draw upon.
We arrived and were at the Sol-Duc-River campground. Pitched the tent and Bill was in the middle and Lee and I outside him. They had new lightweight sleeping bags, mine was the one I slept with, surplus wool and canvas from World War II.
The Elwa river was very low, below the dam which meant a trickle across glacial till, river rocks, no fish.
We drove west and talked about trying to fish the Hoh River which was way around the straights and south on the coast and was on the Hoh Reservation, the sign said when we got there "The People of The Hoh River". The mouth of the river split into various outlets all very deep, with banks thick in saw grass. With Mom and dad we had fished there and camped in 1960 if I remembered right, but that was up the river maybe fifteen miles. There were padlocked chains across the road. We were standing beside the car maybe fifteen feet from the river and it was probably the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen, brilliant green grass, grey green water, blue sky, enormous Sitka Spruce trees all around us.
As if mother earth wanted to punctuate the moment an enormous chinook salmon breached water two feet in the air, at least sixty pounds and seemed to hold in the air then was back in the river.
"Don't see big one's like that anymore, "this sultry voice said.
We whirled around like we were a dance group and the speaker was this lean, dark almond colored woman, with long black hair in a loose braid down her back, with some loose hairs in front she brushed away. Maybe she was the mother of the Hoh River people.
Words were stuck in our throat. She had a tattoo on her wrist, which I did not recognize. Then my eyes were drawn to the younger woman, who must have been her daughter or niece. She was younger not so much older than me and while I was a boy, she was not a girl.
"Something we can help you boys with, "the older one said.
Lee had spent eighteen months in Thailand and was different, harder than Bill, He said to her, "Maybe, "and he walked up to her and resumed talking, but I could not hear what was said.
He went on, "Teddy, catch, "He threw me his keys, and said, "We'll be back there's some corn nuts and some Heidelberg in the cooler." They all started walking away past the chain and up the road until it bent into the trees. I got two bottles of cold Heidelberg and used the church key to open the first one, then tore open the corn nuts. The window in the backseat was open and the breeze was nice off the ocean.
I was reading Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon and I knew I wanted to be a writer, I laughed as I read this one interchange: "Joel Cairo: You always have a very smooth explanation ready.
Sam Spade: What do you want me to do, learn to stutter?"
"What's so funny?"
I jumped in my seat, I had not seen her come down the road, "It's this book, "and I showed it to her and she laughed too.
"Do you want a beer?"
"Sure, "I opened it for her."
She said, "This is res-beer!.
I said, "My mom was born on the Cherokee res in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. If the numbers are right, then I'm an eighth."
I said, "Where are my brothers?"
"We blew them, I did the big one and my mom did the smart ass. They're fucking now, I'm not on the pill."
I laughed.
She said, "What's so damn funny?"
I said, "Sorry, it's just that my mom is an escort and is a from a different reservation, and I didn't finish the sentence.
She said, "What's an escort?"
"Well, she goes to men's homes or couples and they pay her to fuck them. Sometimes in our house when my dad's at work."
She said, "That is funny. Umm do you want to, well you know?
"I've never sat next to someone that is so beautiful as you. You just have no idea. I'm already struggling to be next to you my heart is beating so hard and I'd find some way to stay here, which no matter what I'd say, somebody your dad or brother's would kick my ass. I'm going to be dead for months thinking about you. My name is Teddy, by the way."
"My name is Kailyn."
"I've got a crush on this girl where I go to school and you're a beautiful woman, like a model. Soft and hard, your eyes are so fierce. I'm going to write about you for years.
The kiss was so soft, her lips tender and her tongue was touching me tenderly and insistent, her hands were brushing my hair and face. I found my hands on her back.
It was my first kiss. I was fifteen.
Right then, my brothers returned with Kailyn's mother. We stood up and we hugged and smiled at each other. I said, "Remember, I will write about you."
I grabbed two bologna slices out of the cooler and cut some cheddar cheese and found a hamburger bun and some mustard. All was good in the world.
It took about three and a half hours to go home to 2208 second west in Seattle. It was a quiet journey. I wondered if they were feeling guilty. I had been admonished by Bill not to say anything and I did not.
When we parked in the alley behind our house and we unloaded the cooler which was my parents and my clothes. Bill's stuff was unloaded as well. Shirley was supposed to pick him up, but was not there. We put his stuff in dad's 1961 Rambler Ambassador station wagon and set out for Tukwila which was South and halfway between Renton and Burien. We pulled into the driveway up to the back door and we got out of the car. My dad saw some paper tacked on the door while Bill was opening the trunk.
Dad said, "Go to the back yard Teddy, now, very firm."
When I got there my dad was hugging Bill and Bill was crying. The papers were a divorce petition and an eviction notice. Shirley it seems had stopped paying the rent.
We loaded some of his shit that he wanted, clothes and books. Dad called mom on the phone in the house and told her.
End Steelhead Versus Salmon part seven.
Coming soon part eight the end of the family
Billy moved home and holed up in the basement bedroom of his childhood. Loses his job by never going back to work after Shirly divorced him. He receives packets of medicines from the Veteran's Administration including blood thinners and barbiturates to fight off blot clots and pain from his six knee operations. He looks at disgusting pictures in books. It is the summer of 1970. Elaine throws Billy out of the house after discovering his stache of pornography. Billy does not come to Thanksgiving or Christmas.
I played American Legion baseball that summer. I was playing a game out at Loyal Heights, which is Ballard and I had my left foot on the corner of the plate and there was a throw coming in from right field, there was plenty of plate to score if the runner beat the ball. The ball was thrown all the way in the air and it was a foot from my catcher's mitt, when he blew me up. His name was Jeff Larson. He went to Ballard, he was six foot three and two hundred and thirty five pounds.
Loyal Heights had a mesh steel turtle covering the home plate, so that foul balls would not land on people's roofs, or break windows in cars, or the house. Home plate to the turtle along side the first base line was maybe fifteen feet. I flew into the turtle about five feet up. Dad was outraged, he screamed at the umpire. It was a clean enough play according to big book rules. We were not playing little league baseball.
I was afraid he was going to go over and beat the shit of the Ballard parents. He had done worse. I yelled at him to stop.
I played the rest of the game. The problem was in the morning. My left shoulder and chest were black and blue, as was my right shoulder. My clavicle was broken clean through, I could not raise my arm. Lacking medical insurance, my body tried to heal itself. This was two bad summers for my body. The previous summer I had torn the top off my femur in my left leg hitting a low and away fastball into right center which presented itself as pain in my lower back.
I chose not to play football, much to familial consternation. I was six foot tall and had been for a year. The head football coach of the high school, Reese Lindquist, had called me out of class to meet with him in his office to discuss my "football future". He told me I was making a mistake in playing baseball and that I should join the track team and lift weights three times a day.
I had already done my homework on the issue. I said, "Do you know how many defensive or offensive linemen on the Huskies roster right now are six feet tall?"
If he knew, he lied, "Several."
I said, "Nope, not one and I'm done growing, "he stared at me and after a second I stood up and left his office.
Although I had received my driver's license, driving the family car which was a 1965 Chrysler New Yorker which was the size of a World War II light tank, without the thirty seven millimeter cannon with a three hundred eight three cubic inch V-8 engine with two four barrel carburetors was not in the cards. I did go on a double date, but did have a group of five people, one guy Paul Bleakney, his sister Sheila, Joan Dahlberg, Mary Maxwell and Renee Relich.
Lee had bought my parents a Teac Reel to Reel tape deck. I had joined the capital music, buy one album, get thirteen free for two bucks. I had recorded all of my albums onto two of the reels. We drank a case of Lucky Draft beer. Paul began furiously kissing Renee. I could not look at Sheila as she was one of the most beautiful women I'd ever seen, but Joan was kissing me, we were friends and talked. My parents were in San Francisco on a business trip.
While Paul and Renee endured, Joan ended up with one of my teammates and I was overall pleased at my first social foray. Tuesday after school I came home, I was going hitting with several of my friends, out to the batting cages at the University of Washington, just south of the University Shopping Mall. Mom was waiting at the kitchen table.
Before the front door closed, She said, "We need to talk, " she was wearing an old bathrobe and there was an old half can of ground coffee that functioned as an ashtray that was full of butts, while a freshly lit filtered Kent cigarette dangled from her lip.
I sat across from her. She reached into the pocket of the robe and pulled out this paper towel bundle and sat it on the kitchen table. She deliberately unwrapped the bundle and there were six Lucky Draft bottle caps."
"You promised me you would focus on baseball and get good grades. How could you do this? You can't drink and accomplish that, " she glared at me the smoke enshrouding her face thinking, I was sure, that she was guilting me. Should I tell her of my suicide attempt? Instead I responded.
"I have a three point eight grade point average and I'm in the best shape of my life and I'm going hitting in thirty minutes."
She reached into her other pocket for yet another bundle and laid it next to the first one and without waiting unwrapped it to reveal two used condoms, and raised her eyebrows.
I said, "I'm sorry about that, it seems my friend Paul reached the promised land, umm, twice. I did not, "and unconsciously I let out a loud sigh, and continued, "I am very much attracted to Paul's sister, but she does not have a scintilla of interest in me. Joni on the other hand, likes all kinds of boys and I just happened to be there and we kissed and that was it."
Desperately trying to gain the upper hand, she said, "You need to stay away from girls."
I said, "That's all you got? Nope that's not going to happen, " standing up to leave the table, I trotted through the house and upstairs and threw on, sweatpants, jersey and my blue sweatshirt and was out the door
Christmas and Thanksgiving without Billy was empty. Lee and Carol and Johnny spent Thanksgiving with Carol's family, so there was three of us and the food was great, mom got a smaller turkey. Lee and Carol and Johnny along with Carol's mom Marian had Christmas dinner with us. Overall things were okay at home, my grades were good and it was clear I was focused on baseball.
New year's eve, came and I got rat fucked by two friends who ditched me in favor of a fuck named Jose Shdo. So I stopped that friendship.
Baseball practice started the second week of February and I was doing well, hitting and throwing. Mom would make dinner, a treat for when I would roll in at between six thirty to seven, English muffins, topped with Canadian Bacon, a poached egg and cheddar cheese. I talked about the events of the practice, I hit two balls out to right center both landing in the front yards of two homes. She was quiet and after a bit got up and said she was tired and needed to lie down and went upstairs, which was the last time we sat at the table together.
The next night as I got home I came in the front door as she and Dad went out the back door to the awaiting Chrysler. I put my stuff down and walked through the house as Dad helped her into the front seat of the Chrysler and they sped away before I got halfway through the yard to the alley.
I walked to school the next day and was not sure if he had come home and left for work before I got up. This extended until Friday night when Lee came in the front door as I sat with Gary Stangland drinking thirty two ounce Colt malt liquors as we watched the Lakers play the Sonics. I looked up at him and he said, "Where's mom?"
I shrugged my shoulders and he said, "Come here a second."
I followed him into the kitchen and he said, "I usually come by to talk to Mom after my college classes in the afternoon and she's not been home since Tuesday afternoon."
I told him about Tuesday dinner and her going to take a nap and then seeing them leave the next evening and that I wasn't sure if Dad had come home."
Dad did come on Saturday and said, "Mom is undergoing some tests and would be home soon, don't worry."
I looked at him and said, "So you've been at Erlene's? Mom said she lives in Edmonds?"
He nodded and said, "Mom's okay with this."
I said, "That's not what she told me."
She did come home on February seventeenth, 1971. I walked in after practice and Dad was at the kitchen table and I looked at him and he said, "Mom's upstairs, she wants to talk to you."
I set my stuff down and walked up the stairs and their room was directly to the right at the top of the stair case. She was laying on her side facing away from the door.
I said, "Mom."
She moved to sit up in the bed, facing me and said, "Teddy, I love you. I have cancer and I am very afraid."
I was beside her on the bed, my arm around her and she said, "Ask Dad if you have any questions."
"I love you Mom."
She said, "I know honey. I'm tired, I need to lie down."
She was in and out of hospitals, radiation therapy and chemo therapy, her hair fell out and she died early in the morning of June seventeenth, 1971.
End Steelhead Versus Salmon.
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