Lesbian Step-Mom

     Lorene came to our family when I was only about 4 years old. She was our baby sitter at first and was an expert in the fine art of neglect. She gave my twin brother and I about as much attention as a person gives a traveling salesman or one of those people in the middle of the mall who sales sunglasses and fake jewelry. Lorene was about ten dyears younger than my father, she didn’t have a license, she hadn’t graduated high school and the closest thing to a job she ever had was selling ice cream from a shop for two weeks once. So needless to say, she was more than qualified to be our babysitter. Also I’m sure Mrs. Doubtfire was taken, so Lorene was possibly the only candidate left, qualified to be alone with two four year olds for 10 hours out of the day. It wasn’t all bad. In the beginning we had nap time almost any time she was annoyed or her daytime soap operas were on. She made us Roman Noodles and Mac & Cheese, and after a while she even stopped burning everything. Her work load, or should I say “my” work load, became more strenuous as my dad and her started getting more serious as a couple. At five years old we were vacuuming, doing dishes, folding clothes, and babysitting ourselves, I’m still hoping to get compensated for raising such a good twin brother, I think he turned out pretty well considering I started raising him when I was only 5 years old.

               Air Supply, Chicago, Kansas, White Snake, Queen, and many more power ballads were in the cards for 7 more years to come. One fun fact that should be known is that Michael Bolton started out doing power ballads. Thanks for that Lorene. Anyways, to say the least, this step mom was a little eccentric. For my father she was fun and exciting, youthful. My older brother Nicholas was born as my dad had just graduated from High School. He had to find a job soon to support his family and missed out on many of the things he thought he could have experienced. Lorene was his connection to this excitement he thought he had rightfully deserved. It was the early nineties by then and it seemed as if the drug-craze was just turned cool again after Reagan tried to stomp it out. The minute the government tries to outlaw something, there’s my dear old dad to say, “hey, fuck you man! I’ll do whatever the fuck I want! It’s the first amendment!” Power ballads and hard drugs, what a mix.

                    We moved out of my Grandfather’s house because my dad had found a job doing something counter-productive. It paid part of the bills, and I think my grandfather was just glad to have his house back. We moved to Clyde, Texas into a H.U.D. house. It was nice and we stayed there for about a year. I actually have some good memories and some not so good ones as well. The manual labor started and so did the soap operas. We had this couch from the 70’s I think, or it was so worn out it looked like it was from the 70’s. Joshua, my twin brother, and I would be forced to take naps, each of us on either side of this couch and at least pretend to be sleeping. With the T.V. right in front of us we caught on to a world of lies and pregnant women who’s baby’s daddy was a mystery for a whole season. People in the same dim lit rooms gave off lines that were systematic and predictable, and still, futile to resist. Lorene always liked me more than my brother Josh, and she absolutely despised my brother, Thomas. My Dad stopped by one morning for his lunch break and had with him three large, empty, refrigerator boxes. Nick, the oldest of all of us was making a house or news station or something else requiring skill and knowledge. Tom was also trying to do the same, but found his wasn’t as masterful as Nick’s was. Josh and I were younger and I’m sure he was playing with a lady bug. I however was rolling around in my box, just as a person would be on the inside of a tire or tin trash can as someone pushes them down a hill. I was dropped on my head a lot as a child. Nick and Tom got into an argument and began scuffling over an aluminum carpet rod… Nick had already become a master carpenter. The end result was Josh’s sliced eyeball and a horrified family. After a couple weeks maybe a month or so we move back into my grandfather house where my Uncle took care of us. My dad and Lorene were getting their shit together, or so it seemed.

                  Exhausted, as if we had just come out of Auschwitz, we were shipped back over to my Father and Lorene. Tom however was still living with my mother, when he was Six years old he had an argument with Loren and decided it was best if they broke up.  I was in the third grade the next year, this apparently was the year, that “I’m all out of love, I’m so lost without you” song made a come-back. We lived in a run-down trailer park, in a run-down trailer, next to run-down neighbors. I remember a woman who lived next door to us. I believe her name was Patty and she appeared to be a big carpet-muncher. I apologize if that isn’t the correct terminology, for I have not a clue what is in-between a woman’s legs and have no desire to ever learn, for all I know… it could be carpet. Patty was bragging because she had mastered the art of sucking out the entire inside of a dill pickle. I watched as she would bite off the tip of the pickle; wrap her tongue around the outside seed section and inside dill wall to make room for suction. She placed the pickle half-way down her throat and started to inhale, then presto, out came a white rabbit… or wait! No, it was a pickle with all the insides majically whist away, why couldn't I just have a normal childhood? Sometimes I would imagine children in other neighborhoods, where the houses had foundations and manicured lawns. Our front yard had only a very sturdy gate, useful against robbery and powerless against mice. These children in the burbs would get to see magicians and white rabbits. I, however, was stuck with Patty the pickle sucker. Patty at the time, was living with her soon to be husband, they had to wait to get married because thieir baby wasn’t born yet. A year later Lorene confessed to having intimate relations with her to my father… but who could blame Lorene, the lady could suck out the entire inside of a dill pickle