Spamboy

The police in our town historically do not like to bother the citizens they protect. They don’t like to intrude upon their homes. They hate to get involved in disputes between neighbors. Live and let live. And because everyone in this town is someone you encounter on a regular basis, officers feel especially awkward handing out citations for stupid laws like “animal at large.”

The younger officer who issued my mother’s citation said to her, “Now, ma’am, you can pay the fine. Or…” And at this point, his voice gained a nudge-nudge/wink-wink as he spoke, “…you can take your neighbor to small claims court.”

My mother is as sharp as a knife, and the officer’s emphasis was not lost on her. They both knew that the courts don’t like dealing with bullshit — if she went to court, it was likely that her neighbor’s complaint would be dealt with in my mother’s favor or dismissed. The next day, mom drove to the city courthouse and spoke with the attending clerk, who asked her, “OK, ma’am, did you want to pay this citation or take it to court?”

“Court, please.”

“OK, then–”

She quickly interrupted, “When can we get a jury together?”

The clerk was surprised. “Jury?!”

“Yeah,” said my mom. “I want the biggest fucking trail I can get for my tax dollars!”

I love my mother.

Sometime later, my mother was performing her weekly chore of mowing the lawn with her John Deere. Zigzagging around in the summer heat, one hand occupied with the steering wheel, the other with a cold beer, she would draw straight, regular swaths across our rolling pastures. Earlier that week, Susan and Ed had decided to expand their menagerie through their purchase of a German Sheppard named Casey. It’s been said that animals resemble their owners, and Casey was no exception — the dog was quite dense.

Casey disregarded her owner and ran over to our property to bark at our horses and spread chaos. Ed clambered over the fence to retrieve his dog. He’d chase after the disobedient hound, but every time he came close to rounding her up my mother would pilot her riding mower between the two of them. Ed would get held up in traffic, Casey would pull farther away, and mom would reward herself with a chug.

This spectacle went on for nearly half an hour before Susan felt the need to help. She walked to the fence and prepared to climb it over to our side. Mother cranked the steering wheel, sped towards the fence, parked on the other side from Susan, stood high in the saddle, and sternly said, “Don’t you dare set foot on my property!”

Susan blanched and began, “How dare you take that tone with–”

Mother cut her off. “Don’t you lecture me! I’m a realtor and I know my rights. Set one foot over that fence and I’m calling the cops.” With great timing, my father stepped outside. Although he was some distance away, he witnessed these two women staring down one another. Susan turned to gaze towards my father, who returned the gesture by grinning, then demonstratively dialing the police on his cell phone. She climbed down from the fence and walked back to her house, and not for one second did she take her angry glare off my mother.

Somewhere down the line, my parents became visionaries by embracing Texas Hold ‘Em and hosting gambling night every Friday evening. All of our close friends would come over to play, drink, and smoke the night away. One night, a police cruiser drove up to the house. Two officers, a younger patrolman and his older partner, asked to speak to my mother.

Since our town was small enough that everyone knew just about everyone, we recognized the two. The younger cop also knew my mother and said to her in a friendly country drawl, “We’re reeeeeally sorry that we have to be here tonight, ma’am.” The officers were there because of the goat. It seems that Susan and Ed had grown tired of the goat trespassing upon their green pastures, and they had called the cops on us! Before the night was through, my mother was issued a citation for “animal at large,” one of the more obscure laws on the books.

And so began…The Goat Wars.

Everything was hazy.

“Matthew,” called a muffled voice, “time to wake up.”

My surroundings, although fuzzy, would come into slow, painstaking focus as the voice gently called to me.

“Matthew, how do you feel?”

I was cold, despite the thick blanket draped over my listless body. I was sitting in a dentist’s chair and was awake. I guess that my oral surgery must be over.

Buzzing around me was my surgeon, whose name I did not remember, and a couple of comely assistants, whose names I wish I did. They kept asking me questions, attempting to discern if my anesthesia had worn off enough to permit discharge.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” I said, “I am ready to leave.” Each of the assistants took hold of my hands and helped me out of the chair. When I seemed properly set on my feet, they asked if I was doing alright. I nodded. They gently released their hold, and down to the floor I fell like a wet noodle.
They tried to help me up, but I would have none of it — I slapped their hands away, frustrated at the unwanted attention. “I’m fine, I’m fine,” I barked. But instead of standing up, I started to crawl towards the exit. The doctor, embarrassed by my display, barked at me to get up. “No!” I yelled. I reached up, turned the doorknob, and continued slithering into the lobby.

My mother was at the receptionist’s counter, in the middle of writing a check for the procedure. When the door popped open, she stood stunned at the site of her youngest, doped-up and army-crawling into the room. Other parents in the room emulated my mother’s reaction, while their kids giggled in highest of amusement. I reached my mom, wrapped my arms around both her legs, and settled down for a well-earned nap.

My brother Michael was in the audience, sitting on a nearby couch and enjoying every minute of my show. Mom bent down to wrench herself free from my grasp, and Michael popped over to rib me in the process. I don’t remember much of what he said, but the words “Spaz!” and “Idiot!” come to mind. At the very least, he prevented me from starting my nap, and for that I hated him. If I wasn’t so doped up, I might have been able to fire back a witty retort about the patch he was forced to wear for his lazy eye.

Mom was terribly embarrassed and you could hear it in her voice. “Matthew, get up!” she snapped. Grabbing my wrist, she forcefully directed me out of the office, into the elevator, and beyond to our waiting car. Dad was inside, and any happiness at seeing his family was muted upon catching my mother’s sour expression. Not needing to ask what happened, he flatly declared, “Alright, Maffers, let’s get you home.”

“No!” I retorted.

Dad was taken aback. “What do you mean, ‘No’?!”

“I wanna go t’ Simon David,” I slurred.

Simon David was Dallas’s oldest gourmet grocer. Earlier in the day, I read they had just opened a small handful of supermarket-sized venues. Somehow in my drug-induced state, this sounded interesting to a ten-year old child.

“No, we need to get you home,” Dad said.

I screamed, “No! I wanna go t’ Simon David!”

As Mom and Dad still needed to buy groceries that night’s dinner, they relented.

When the four of us arrived, I assumed my usual position as cart handler. My parents walked at the helm, excepting me to take up the rear as usual. A minute later, they turned around to check on me, but I wasn’t there. I had disappeared along with the cart.

I could be found on the opposite end of the store, briskly navigating each aisle and filling the cart with every bright color or shiny sheen that industrial packaging could provide. Soon it was overflowing with various sundries, a super-majority of which did not need.

My family eventually discovered me. Mom would later tell me that she was more embarrassed at that moment than at the doctor’s office. Dad assigned Michael to keep an eye on me while the two of them went through the laborious task of putting back the sundried tomatoes, Black Sea caviar, and fizzy French water that wasn’t on our grocery list. Then we checked out and drove home.

When we returned home, my brother and I discharged our official shopping duties: he unloaded dry goods into pantry, while I filled the refrigerator. I opened the door and bent over to transfer vegetables into the lower-level crisper bins.

Unbeknownst to me, the gravitational pull of the planet earth was beginning to exert a stronger pull, but only on myself. In one slow motion, I was brought down to one knee while continuing to unload groceries. Then came both knees. Soon enough, I sat on the floor in a side-saddle fashion. After the final item was inside the ice box, I closed its door and sat with my back against the cold, steely metal. My eyes felt heavy, and a shit-eating grin emerged on my face.

The air was then pierced by a determined squeak. I looked down, and there was our oldest Siamese cat Martha Mitchell. Three years older than me and already ancient by this time, with her trademark blue eyes now a steeled grey, she was frail but still full of vigor. Time had turned her purring meow into a single note of a screech that sounded like a rusty screen door. She sashayed up to my side and began to purr.

I looked outside and caught glimpse of our swimming pool. Then I looked back at her, and an idea came to mind that seemed just as logical as visiting a grocery store half-drunk.

“Hey, Martha! Wanna go schwimmin’!?”, I asked.

The last thing I remember is my dad yelling, “Goddamnit!” as he snatched me by the shirt collar, then tossed me into bed, where I immediately passed out.

I didn’t wake up for two days.

This was in the age before cell phones, when parents had to wait for their kids to call them – and they had to be home to receive such calls. But in general, my parents treated me with kid gloves, and as long as I returned home before it was too late or called to tell them where I was—both of which I failed to do–they weren’t particularly concerned with what I did.

But they were aware that I regularly drove south to get comic books each and every week. And even in the past when I’d fallen off the grid like this, they hadn’t reacted so sternly as they were now doing. I mouthed back defensively and very much like an obnoxious teenager, “I went to the comic book store to get my comics before Thanksgiving!” I punctuated my exasperation with a breathy, woe-is-me, get-off-my-back-man, “Shhhhhit!”

The two of them said that was fine, but they berated me for not calling or leaving a note. I had little fight in me, so I let them finish their lecture. I then shut myself in my bedroom at the front of the house to read my comics.

I lay on my bed, underneath a sea of posters and pictures dedicated to my favorite fictional heroes. I digested book after book, absorbing tales of earth-born mutants, Kryptonian-born saviors, and all-too-human everyday heroes.

Midway through my weekly ritual, a string of lights began to shine through the blinds. One after one, the sweeping beams of headlights swung left to right as a series of cars came up the curvy road leading to our house. Multiple vehicles were descending upon our farm. Yet since I was self-centered enough to not care unless I knew they had something to do with me, I ignored the event and resumed reading.

Through the thin walls, I could hear the doorbell, and Gos, Tyson, and Murphy barked in excitement at the prospect of visitors. I could hear the murmur of voices as several people entered the house and were greeted by my parents.

Moments later, the sound of shuffling footsteps came closer, capped with swift raps on my bedroom door.

Before I could say come it, open flew the door and standing in my room was every single one of my friends, with my girlfriend Pam forming the point of a visibly-annoyed phalanx of high-schoolers.

They barked in unison, “Where the hell have you been?”

Apparently déjà vu was also one of my friends.

I sprang into action. I grabbed my wallet and keys, hopped into my truck, and flew down Davis Parkway towards Hurst, the town that was home to the closest comic book shop. I got there with plenty of time before they closed, and the owner Stephanie was furiously trying to unpack the new shipments and get the shelves stocked. I helped her out a little, reading a quick comic book here and there between opening boxes. Because I was a regular customer, Stephanie held my favorite titles behind the counter, ensuring that my weekly reading list’s comics were never sold out before I could get my hands on them. I ended up spending quite awhile there. I eventually purchased my booty and headed back out in my truck.

Right before turning onto the highway heading home, I spied Best Buy and recalled that I hadn’t rewarded myself with a new CD in quite some time. I steered into the parking lot and spent an hour browsing the stacks. Eventually I settled on some discs and attempted to get back to Southlake.

While fumbling around with my in-dash CD player, I passed North Halls Mall on my left. The video arcade inside called to my soul, and I felt the irresistible urge to play some pinball and Galaga. Soon enough, a slowly depleting fistful of quarter-dollars filled my pocket, and somewhere video game designers were already cashing their holiday bonuses.

Finally, long after the sun had set, I made my way back to Southlake.

Moments after walking in the door, I was accosted by my parents. Both were sitting in the living room, sternly staring at me as I walked in, arms laden with plastic bags of pop culture goods. My mother barked, “Where the hell have you been?”

I got home from school, went straight into my dad’s office, and fired up his computer.

Within moments, the system was up. A few swift keyboard commands fired up the internal modem. And chirps and clicks of static noise confirmed a successful connection to one of the many bulletin board systems I perused each and every day.

While browsing around some message threads, the screen suddenly went haywire with bursts of random, ASCII characters. My session locked up, and I was unable to enter any commands. I cursed in frustration, causing my dog to pop up in excitement at the noise.

Looking at the clock, it was 4:00pm, the time my mother regularly called to ensure I was safely home from school. Many times I had asked my mom not to do this, as her incoming calls always knocked me off of my modem connections, and getting reconnected to bulletin boards wasn’t the easiest of prospects. But since she refused to let me disable call waiting while I lived under her roof, we played this cat-and-mouse game each and every day. I picked up the phone, and indeed it was mom.

After chatting for a few minutes about the school day, mom asked, “Will you be there when we get home from work?”

I thought for a second. It was the day before Thanksgiving, so all of my friends were busy doing their own thing. I said, “As far as I know, sure.”

“OK, sweetie. Love you,” she said.

“Love you, too.” I hung up.

Moments after placing down the receiver, I realized what day it was. Sure, it was Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving. But more importantly, it was Wednesday, as in “the day before Thursday”, as in “the normal day of the week when my favorite comic book shop received their new shipment of comics but instead got them one day earlier because of the holiday.” The shop would be open today but closed through the weekend. If I wanted new comics, I had to go…now!

A month had passed since Jenn and I started dating. Although it was early in our relationship, there was a spark that told me what we shared was significant.

One Friday night along the way we made plans to go out for the evening. Before I walked out the door to go pick her up, the phone rang.

It was Jenn. She was calling to tell me that she couldn’t go out with me anymore.

I asked why, and Jenn told me it was because I was an atheist, that someone who was Catholic and faithful couldn’t see herself with someone like myself.

Needless to say, I was speechless. Up to that moment, I had expected to be galavanting around town with my cutie. Instead things seemed to be over as quickly as they had begun. I hung up, then laid down on my bed. I was still wearing the nice shirt I had put on for our date. I cradled my head in my hands and stared at my ceiling. There I brooded all night, pondering over in over in my mind how a childhood decision would forever subject me to a lonely existence.

Although I am sure they believed in God, my parents never raised their sons to be religious. Sure, we were baptized, but never once did we attend church together or say grace. I was young, after all, so it’s entirely possible that I am fuzzy on the details. I do remember one thing with perfect clarity: the moment I decided that God didn’t exist.

I was seven years old, and my family was on a houseboat vacationing at Lake Powell, Utah. One night, I was hanging around the kitchen with my family. I was off in the corner eating some hotdogs, while my brother was helping mom mix up some powdered milk for dinner. It was when I was by myself that I had my first-ever revelation. I thought, “There’s no such thing as God.”

I hadn’t pondered the question of His existence before that moment, but that answer to an unasked question provided me with absolute comfort even as a kid. And for next three decades, I grew up knowing that things were right in my universe.

My beliefs weren’t seriously challenged until after I left school. In college, it was easy to nuture my atheism because of the rich diversity of people (and like minds) I encountered during my six years. But following graduation, I dated a woman from a large, traditional Catholic family who often was offended by my atheism. She assumed that because I believed in my atheism so strongly that someone as faithful as her must be foolish or at the very least stupid. She assumed this because she herself thought my lack of belief was ridiculous and offensive.

I honestly never thought such a thing, because I didn’t consider people of faith being wrong. I drew comfort from the choices I made; if someone else choose to believe in a higher power I appreciated such decisions. Although they weren’t choices I would make, who am I to judge others? Like any believer in the Golden Rule I hoped they would offer me the same respect.

I thought I had such respect from Jenn. Then that phone call changed my mind.

All of this is what I thought of over and over that one Friday night, lying on my bed with a broken heart.

“‘Till death do us apart.”

After dinner one night, my father complained about some minor abdominal distress. He was sweating a little and his stomach was feeling twisted into knots. Our next door neighbor was a registered nurse, so Mom telephoned for her to come over and take a look. By the time she arrived, Dad was starting to feel worse.

The nurse asked some questions and briefly examined my father. Her diagnosis: indigestion. Recommended treatment: administer an enema.

I guess she forgot to bring along her leeches.

Dad was feeling bad enough that Mom and the nurse had to administer the enema. I still cannot fathom how awkward of a scene this might have been, especially for the one who was being internally flushed by warm liquids. But it seemed to work, for after the procedure, Dad reported that he felt somewhat improved.

Later in the evening, Dad woke up feeling worse many times over. He was now terribly feverish, and sweat gushed from his forehead. He woke up Mom to report this news, and she got up to take him to the nearest emergency room.

The doctor they met asked some questions and briefly examined my father. His diagnosis: bursting appendix. Recommended treatment: life-saving emergency surgery.

It is my assumption that the nurse and the doctor did not go to the same medical school.

Dad was operated on that night and the surgery was routine and successful. The next day, he was scheduled to be discharged and Mom went over to take him home.

She had to wait in the hospital lobby, a long plain room filled with lots of other waiting people. She stood near the entrance at one end; facing her at the other end was a bank of elevators.

Some time passed, and then the elevator chimed. Its silver doors parted, and inside was a nurse standing behind a wheelchair that held my father. The two of them wheeled out into the lobby

Dad spotted Mom from across the crowded room. He then stood up out of his wheelchair, pointed at her, and shouted, “That bitch tried to kill me!” Everyone in the lobby heard him and followed his gesture until they were locking eyes with my speechless mother.

Speaking of speechless, the two of them did not speak to one another for nearly two weeks.

“Amen!”

“In sickness and in health…”

My dad’s mother was a curious creature. I didn’t know Grandmother as well as my mother’s mom, Nana. She was a creature whose hobbies were being crotchety and holding grudges up until her final breath.

In the 1960’s, my parents had just started dating, and Grandmother made no secret that she did not like my Dad’s choice for a girlfriend. To her, no one was good enough to date her son. After accepting my father’s proposal, Mom reached out often in an attempt to win the heart of her future mother-in-law.

One night, the two of them went over to Grandmother’s house to break bread over a home-cooked dinner with Dad’s parents. Grandmother and her husband Gaylord greeted the two as they arrived. Gaylord truly enjoyed my mother and was grateful for her company, while Grandmother at least remained on good behavior.

The quartet dined on Salisbury Steak, with the standard veggie and starch for sides. After dinner, my mother spoke with Grandmother and complimented her on the fine meal. In fact, Mom made it a special point to comment about the tasty mushroom sauce that smothered their steaks. Grandmother smiled and bragged that it was homemade, using wild mushrooms that she had personally picked from the backyard.

Later that evening, all four of them were at the hospital, getting their wrenching stomachs pumped.

“For richer or poorer…”

Incidents like that convince me that my parents were just one fuck-this-shit step away from divorce. For example, take the board game Monopoly, a fun enough game if you play by the rules.

One day, the two of them were playing the game, and everything was going swimmingly — that is, until my Dad began to take advantage of the house rules whose existence incidentally had been known only to my father up to this point. Fighting and arguing resulted from these “house rules” but they continued to play for awhile. The game ended quickly enough, when Mom attempted to procure a loan from the game’s bank, but the banker–Dad–would only provide the credit line if mom paid 3.59% compound interest per roll of the dice and secured the loan with the four Railroads & The Electric Company.

Years later, I was born. It wouldn’t be until college that I saw my first Monopoly game, as it was permanently banned from our household.