text: C Philio The Care and Feeding of Lunatics 
   
   
     
   I don't know how any of us escaped, and wonder if any actually did.  I always say that I got out before it was too late because after I left things got worse.  All night novenas with everyone on their knees around the statue of the virgin and a candle praying for God knows what.  The trips to the safeway dumpster with a look out at each end of the alley.  The spiral into worse and worse areas of town in an attempt to spend less on rent (leaving more for booze) and "fly under the radar".  Living in the no doctor zone, enlisting the youngest to care for the sickest.  I could go on but then I'd just be repeating myself later.  I have a hard time believing some of the stories, but the previous history lends credibility.  We really were doomed from the git, grandma on moms side, mom, grandma on dads side, dad, throw in a lot of valium from the military docs and as much booze as dad could afford without actually letting us starve or go naked and you have an idillyc childhood.  How did we not get taken away?  I mean really there were five of us by the time I was nine its not like we were invisible.  Grandma on moms side spent a lot of time in "the home" especially after mom was born.  They never bonded well and mom developed some issues of her own.  Grandma on dads side went thru husbands like socks and spiked her morning coffee with brandy. Dad, well the military triggered him.  Personally I believe dad faked it to get out but it ended up being more than he could handle.  Dad came home with a diagnosis of paranoid schitzafrenic, a lot of valium and was well on his way to becoming a serious alcoholic.  Mom and Dad were both catholic when I was little and there was only one birth control as far as they were concerned and since there are six of us we should assume that it didn't do much to prevent pregnancy.  Mom in her turn spent a lot of time at "the home" after a couple of the kids the one I remember most was after the youngest girl.  Mom was changing a diaper and she had fuzzy slippers on her feet a dirty diaper in one hand and pins in the other.  She started downstairs to get a clean diaper and slipped on the carpeted stairs, stabbing the pins into her hand, dropping the dirty diaper (that was a mess) and hitting her head on the post at the bottom.  She spent at least two weeks in the home that time and it wasn't because she had a concusion.  That was the first time I remember her being gone, according to dad though it was just one time in a long line of times.  But to be fair I really only have his word for it and he was not the most truthful person I've ever known.  As I got older I did see more proof of her issues although dads were always much more apparent.  There was a pattern in my house, mom would read to the exclusion of all else, dad would drink until he couldn't function, and I would see to the younger kids. I would literally have to take the book from moms hands to get any help from her and dad just delegated whatever he didn't want to deal with.  When I was 15 the youngest son was born and mom was exhausted, so I tended to him.  I used to make believe he was mine and cared for him like he was.  When mom would go to sleep and not wake up to his crying (even though he was right next to her) I did eventually wake up (three rooms away with the door shut).  On one occasion I went out to get the baby and smelled something odd in the vacinity of the kitchen.  I went to see what that was and tripped over dad who was laid across the kitchen between the sink and stove on a chair with his head in the oven.  The gas was cranked and the pilot light on the water heater (not five feet away) was a happy little flame just waiting for the fumes to get that far.  Being the closest thing to a practical adult, I turned off the gas and removed my father from the oven.  It took a bit to get him to safety, (a mattress a few rooms away from the kitchen).  Go give the baby a bottle, rock him back to sleep and sit vigil in the kitchen...just in case.  Is it any wonder I smoked a little smoke, drank what I could get my hands on and eventually found my way to the drug of the day?  Nobody really noticed when I started showing up stoned, mom was busy with a book or the baby and dad was too drunk to recognize.  Then one day I was passed out in my room when the bed really started rocking, I came around slowly more because the sun was really bright in the front yard and asked where we were going with my mattress.  My younger brother shushed me--don't you want to go on the picnic?--oh yea sure--and I was out til we were almost to Pueblo.  Hell of a long way for a picnic.  We had developed a tradition in our household it has come to be known as the Humble Bug Out.  (Mom was a big fan of MASH).  It just meant that what ever made it to the vehicle of the day before it was full was what was going with us to the next new home, (I use that term very loosely).          
   
   
   Publication Date: January 16th 2011 https://www.bookrix.com/-cphilio