Splitends-the memoir

What an intense journey my life has become.  When I was a little boy I was bored to pieces, I knew there was more to the world that I so desperately craved.  Little did I know that same boy bouncing alone on a trampoline in "never never Whiteville's" countryside in northern Ohio that my life would challenge every ounce of courage I had to stay alive.  I laid alone often on my trampoline and day dreamed that I must have been adopted by this family I live with, my real family was world travelers longing to find their lost son while gazing into the ocean from our yacht's balcony.  I told my mother that one day they would find me and want me back.  Her response, nonchalantly, was "well let me know when they arrive and I will have your bags packed and ready".  She was a strict disciplinarian who had her own tragic childhood.  I was the kid who wanted to know everything and then I wanted to know why.  She shared very little with us about her story.  I knew my grandpa had passed when she was 16 and that they were raised under very strict catholic guidance.  I suppose this was the reason we never learned anything about the bible nor attended any church services.  I also knew she got pregnant in high school and had to marry Gary's father and was very regretful that she didn't utilize her dads veteran status to attend college via awarded grants.  My uncle Scott was the baby of the family, our idol, her best friend.  We were at his house the night before it burned to the ground.  We would run to the top of his circular staircase and he would toss us up to the ceiling to my cousin who'd catch us at the bottom, we didn't stop till I threw up my red Kool Aid on his carpet.  I must have been in second or third grade, the next morning I realized I left my books at his place the night before.  I called his house from school to see if he could drop them off.  The phone kept ringing and ringing and on the last try I swear someone picked up but no one answered.  A couple hours later my little brother and I were called to the office and instructed to walk home immediately citing a family emergency.  My mother quickly shuffled us to the car and made a mad dash out to his place about 20 min away.  Turning down Cement street, the street they grew up on, we saw clouds of smoke and several fire trucks.  Behind the trucks was no longer a house but merely the foundation with smoldering debris scattered.  I help my moms hand as we walked on the charred pieces of black and grey suite which was all that was left of this once magical playground and home to our favorite guy in the whole world.  At this point my mother was engaged to her third husband and we were still living in the house my dad bought on 908 Thorpe drive.  We got home and received confirmation that uncle Scott went up with the smoke at the young age of 25.  Later we learned this was confirmed by finding merely a piece of his skull among the debris ironically located by the only telephone in his house. My mother walked to her room and closed the door with force and behind the wall while sitting with our heads down at the kitchen table she let out a haunting scream from deep within her soul.  Startled we looked at each other with big eyes but made no noise.  She came from her room a different person and our lives were never the same.  They were the youngest of the five and the black sheep of the family and best friends.  Things remained somber for quite some time and their drinking became a nightly ritual.  Rick was introduced to us and moved in around this time.  He consumed a lot of my mom's attention which became a battle I fought till they finally split nine years later. He arrived from Virginia with a long pony tail, a painters hat, carrying an army duffle bag and what I perceived a chip on his shoulder.  We were told they had dated in high school before he was drafted into the army.  He left his two kids with Peggy in VA.  I remember watching him shoot birds in the backyard, smoke them in the "smoker", and suck the meat off the bones.  This was the beginning of the end for me particularly due to my sensitive nature.  I cringed often as I watched and listened to him suck the marrow from bones at the dinner table.  Initially I suppose I whined and made a fuss about it but this was not allowed at the dinner table.  Nor was leaving the table till your plate was clear.  This was more than fair in her eyes as she reminded us that we were fortunate because at their dinner table growing up they were not even permitted to talk let alone complain about the food they had to eat.  It wasn't long after the blue prints came for our "dream cabin" out in the country.  This was probably the best memory I have of him as he involved us in discussions about where our rooms would be once completed.  We were told we were moving out to the country and encouraged to say goodbye to our neighborhood friends.  They purchased six acres of land, cleared one acre, dug a well, and put a trailer on a slab of foundation where we would live "until the cabin was built".  The cabin was never built and the blueprints were probably used to start one of our infamous bonfires.  We had no real neighbors in sight.  His kids visits were rare, probably about as rare as "sober' was to them.  He drank Miller lite and my mom drank Bud Light both a minimum of 12 per night each.  The well water smelled horrible.  I remember standing naked at the shower with my little brother in disgust that we had to shower and who would go first after receiving a threatening phone call from mom, she was on her way and we had better have our chores and showers done before she got home.
So now here we are, the four of us, out in the middle of nowhere.  My oldest brother moved out before we left Thorpe drive by deceiving my mother about his whereabouts.  My Grandma Jane favored Gary from the start, perhaps partly because she looked after him while my mother finished high school and then many evenings when she would go out and about partying.  Once her baby, my uncle Scott, died that sealed their bond for life.  Gary was five years older than me and my youngest only 11mos my junior.  I remember my mom sending the three of us out the door to walk to school, Gary would instruct us to go ahead and he'd catch up with us, several times I looked back for him and just around the corner discovered him getting in the blue Lumina with Jane.  So rather walking his little brothers to school he'd climb in our grandmas warm car around the corner to drive just him abandoning his toddler brothers to fend for ourselves.  I don't think I ever mentioned this to mom.  I used to be so envious of his water bed and closet full of colorful tennis shoes and that red Michael Jackson leather jacket.  We slept on bunk beds and wore hand me downs.  I hated him just as much as I envied all of his treasures.  He was an asshole of an older brother, he would pin me down with his knees over my arms and relentlessly peck on my chest with his fingers and dangle spit over my face, sometimes he'd suck it back in his mouth and sometimes it would drip on my face or even worse in my mouth while screaming for help.  We had boxing gloves and I longed for the day I could reach his face with my fist.  I fought back hard till I reached exhaustion and defeat.  His father began making appearances on Friday nights to pick him up for the weekend after my mother stopped his weekend stays at Jane's place.  Now it was time to take charge of her family to ensure we were all treated and disciplined equally.  Gary had everything and anything he wanted with Jane's checkbook.  After my grandpas suicide and my uncles death she had lots of life insurance money.  His birthday presents were go karts, later real cars, while our gifts were raincoats and shoes.  Gary senior said he wanted all custodial rights to his son, promising he would provide the needed discipline to change Gary Jr's defiant spoiled brat ways.  It was somewhat strage for him to start showing up and taking him on weekends but my mother was fed up so she packed a few of his bags, signed the papers, and sent him with his father.  Gary came to tell us that he was leaving us but he would be around to visit.  My feelings were hurt and I wasn't sure I was ready to be the big brother at the time per his request.  It wasn't long after one of my mom's girlfriends noticed that Gary was not with his father but rather often spotted at Jane's place.  This was the second wail of defeat we heard in that house on Thorpe Drive.  Much like when she lost her brother to fire this time she lost her son to her own mother and there was nothing she could do about it.  I came to learn later that Gary Sr. was promised that if he get custody of his son and give it to Jane he'd never have to pay child support again.  The three of them devised that plan together and all played a successful role in his great escape.  This wasn't the first time she fell victim to her mother's deceit.
My Aunt Marlene all high and mighty on the hill in Castalia who could do no wrong had a daughter the same age as me.  Occasionally they would get along enough for us to play, most often this was not the case.  Marlene came to pick up Matt and I for dinner at Wendy's in town with her daughter Tera.  This is when she accidently told us that our grandfather shot himself in their home when my mom was 16.  Being the sensitive kid I was I could not wrap my head around the new found information.  I was waiting for my mom to come home that evening with a hundred questions.  This ended our visits Marlene as well as their phone communication for several years.  I just wasn't sure if my grandpa earned a place in heaven with my uncle Scott.  Often I'd lay awake in prayer with my Scott and Grandpa Charles, now there was a certain emptiness when trying to feel blanketed with his spirit.  I could only sense the spirit of my Uncle but no longer Grandpa's.  Was it because I never knew him or that he committed a sin that was unforgivable by God?  My mother was brief when answering my questions of confusion.  She certainly did not discuss the family matters of her past that was later revealed to me after her death.
My Aunt Judy in Michigan would later reveal that her father, a troubled drunk, would take the family to the basement, with his gun, to lay down the laws of the household he feared loosing.  She was also aware that her playmate in school, a neighborhood girl of the same age, was her half sister, apparently she nor her family knew this information.  Obviously another catholic family on Cement Street who didn't discuss their problems either.  She informed me that my mother was often scapegoat for Jane's affairs.  She would take my mom to the mall while she "ran some errands", and instructed her to lie to Charles about her whereabouts.  Apparently after a hiatus to get his drinking under control he came home and begged Jane to take him back in, after realizing she was not letting him come back home just yet he got up from the dinner table and went in the master bedroom and shot himself in the head.  There were no cleaning services back then for this sort of thing.  At this point my mom and Scott were the only two left in the the house with Jane.  At this point she received a settlement from his passing and pacified the needs of her youngest with gifts and money.  Is it any wonder they became the black sheep?