Family Legend

                I would explore my parent’s divorce. It started to happen when I was nine or so, and it was very dramatic and hostile and my parents have very different stories. It is like a legend for me, even though I was alive for it. The memories are fragmented and very hot. I’d like to piece it all together.

                I wonder where I would start. There are a few events that really stick out. There was a period where my brother (he is two years younger) and I didn’t see my dad for three weeks straight. I think the longest we’d gone without seeing him before this was just for a long weekend. The memories are really choppy. I remember asking my mom why she wouldn’t let us see him, and I remember the reason was that she said he was doing drugs and wasn’t safe to be around. I remember seeing his white van drive by our house, and I could sense him in there, feeling for us, for all of us. Then I remember the white land-line house phone ringing. I went to get it, and got it, and then (I’m making this up now, I really don’t remember) my mom came flying in and grabbed it from me, and I can not imagine without shuddering how her face must’ve looked. The white van, the white phone, just before bedtime. There is a lot to story that needs to be filled in.

                This episode was at the beginning of their separation. Another time, after the divorce was final but still fresh, my dad, who was in fact doing lots of drugs, mainly crystal meth, took my brother and I up to Portland (we lived in Salem, OR) in his white van. My parents owned a furniture store before the divorce, and my dad still had cushions, foam pieces, and fabric packed in the back area of the van . He had pulled out the seats and arranged all the furniture stuff like a lounge in his backseat. It was pretty wonderful, especially being 10. So we were cruising around Portland on a Monday night (I think) and eventually my brother and I fell asleep in the lounge in the back. I woke up, and the car was parked in what to me today seems was probably the heart of the downtown. There weren’t many people on the streets, even for a Monday. I’d guess it was three in the morning when I woke up. I woke up my brother because I was a bit frightened and wanted some company. We noticed near the front area of the van a white take-out container that smelled really good. There was a note  attached to the top, and inside was a fancy banana dessert that was still warm. I don’t remember what the note said, but it was something along the lines of “I’ll be back soon, hope you like the dessert. It’s really good.” My brother and I did a good job not being worried, and my dad came back in about an hour. I think he said he was looking for his wallet in a night club. I believe him, but I wonder what was going through his head. I told my mom about it, and she flipped the fuck out. That was a damn good dessert, though.

             There is at least ten other interesting incidents I could think of to make into stories by starting with fact and filling in the rest with fiction. But honestly, what I consider fact is questionable. When this all happened, I was at a point where I smart enough to understand how people worked, but not old enough to not lose a lot of the memories to repression. As has been mentioned in the lectures about trauma narratives, my memories of these events exist mainly as only single-image still-shots. I think expanding these memories into narratives will be my first writing project. I think they would make a nice bunch of vignettes.