I finally decided that it was time to get ready after my mother called that morning. This was the first time she had come to visit me at Milton Hershey School. She was excited to see her “little boy.” I haven’t been a little boy for at least seven years. She must have been trying to make up for lost time because I haven’t seen her for about a year. She was not even at her mother’s funeral.
My phone buzzed. Sheila. I picked up.
“I’ll be right down.”
My mom leaned against her black Pontiac Sunfire in a black lace skirt with a lilac underlay. It was a bit fringed at the hem. Her shirt was an off-white tank top, and her boobs were sagging even though just last week I told her to buy a better bra at JCPenney – I may not have seen her for about a year but she does call me weekly so I cannot seem to get rid of her. She was texting on her phone. A toothy grin reached me.
“Kerry1 said he is going to try to get vacation time to come up here.”
Her dry, brittle salt-and-pepper hair stained by red L’Oreal hair dye and her thick glasses yellowed and old reminded me of how long it’s been since things have been normal or if our family was ever normal.
“Sure mother2,” I said trying not to sound sarcastic, “Kerry will be home soon.”
“What do you want to do for the weekend?” she said like I had a plan.
“I have a ticket to Hersheypark you could use, and then I can use my ID to get in. I mean if you wanted to go.”
“I want to do anything that you want to do3.”
She began to drive toward the amusement park. She tried to act like she knew where she was going. My mother had never left western Pennsylvania. I was surprised that she even made it to Hershey by herself. It would not be too long before she decided that she needed to go to the bar, or needed her fix.
“How long have you been clean?4”
“About three months.”
1Kerry wasn’t the most appropriate guy for my mother. She was a recovering drug addict at this time, and we all know that Kerry was addicted to heroin. They lived together until Kerry got laid off and had to move away to make some money. It would also be about a month before Kerry would die of a “heart attack”. My mother called it a heart attack but we all know it was a heroin overdose.
2 My mother was only 33 years old now, but years of drug abuse have taken their toll. She began greying around 26, and she lost all of her teeth before 28. My family has never been normal, but I would like to think that we all made a decent effort to be normal.
3 My mother would get into this anything-to-please-you-honey kind of phase right after she had either relapsed or directly after she became clean. My sister would fall for this easier than I would. I had seen some of her worst moments, and would not fall for any guilt trip that might be coming. She has tried to persuade me to move in with her so many times that it is ridiculous. What is even more ridiculous could be the time that I almost fell for it.
4 This question I had asked my mother many times. I would never think that I would have to ask my mother this question at all. Recently, she told me that she has been clean but the news headline said otherwise. Her boyfriend was arrested for stabbing someone else in the eye with a screwdriver. The part of the story that she left out to me–but the newspaper said–was that they were high on crack. There are many times that I do not believe her answer.
Her answers were always quick and short. It was like she could tell when I knew she was lying. She was usually lying5.
“Do you have anything planned for us to do, or do you want me to figure it out as we go?”
“It is completely up to you.”
This answer has always been my least favorite. I am terrible at making decisions6, and apparently, she is as well. I just sighed, and she pulled onto Hersheypark Drive.
“Have you been to the park before?”
“I have been here a few times. It would probably be safe to say that I have been here at least once a month for the past five years.”
“That is nice. Do you have any favorite rides?7”
“I like a few of the roller coasters.” I somehow forgot that I don’t like hanging out with my mother. I have built up a tolerance to her. I would only be with her whenever she complained that we never spent time together8.
“Have you found a nice boy yet? Or a girl?”
Here we go again. I cannot believe that my mother still asked me about finding a girlfriend. I thought that when I told her I was gay9, that would be enough. She remembered the last guy that I had dated. Then the other one that bought me a rose for Valentine’s Day. But I reluctantly answered that I am still single.
Why do parents always ask the questions that make you feel like shit? My mother probably wouldn’t come to my graduation10 in a month. She would find something that is more important to do.
5The day after my grandfather died she said she would be in town to help my grandmother and me go through his stuff. She was nowhere to be found, but we got a call from the police. She ended up getting drunk at the bar and getting into a fight. My mother was an alcoholic and she was an angry one. This is one of the many moments that I am glad that I was not raised by her.
6This is true to this day. I am horrible at making decisions, and this is probably the reason that I cannot push my mother out of my life. I honestly think that I would be better off without her in my life.
7When my mother gets nervous she asks a lot of questions. I have just started to assume that she was trying to make something up to me. She never could be straight with me. She would write me letters while she was in prison but she would never tell me why she was there, or when she would be getting out.
8In 2016, I spent Spring Break with my mother and have never quite recovered from that experience. If you wanted to know what actually happened I would suggest asking my ENGL 212 class. They remember “Have You Ever Tried Crack?” But for the few of you that do not understand, all you need to know is: Hepatitis C, crack, and rancid vaginas.
9 I think that my mother took my homosexuality the hardest. She complained that no one would carry on the family name. My uncle had two daughters, and I was the only boy. She grew to the idea of having a “queer” son. For the first year she would continue to use baseball metaphors to describe my sex life to her friends and to me. I felt quite awkward that my mother was interested in my sex life.
10In case you were wondering, she did not come to my graduation. She decided that she would like to get high with her new boyfriend. It wasn’t even a week after Kerry had died, but she had found a new boyfriend already.
She finally found a parking spot, and we trotted out of the car toward the entrance to the park. She looked at me. I had caught her looking me up and down.
“Have you lost weight?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“I am sure. I have been the same weight for the past three years.”
As we waited in line for The Comet, I saw that my mother’s hands were shaking. Was she going through withdrawal? If she had been clean11 for three months, then she would be experiencing a bit I guess.
We were seated, and before I knew it we started up the first hill. My mother grabbed my hand. She was afraid of heights but was doing this for me. Maybe she was trying to be a better person? Maybe she was trying to change her ways? Or maybe she was just faking it?12
11I have seen my mother go through withdrawal many times, but it is nothing compared to right after she relapses. She becomes violent and forgets to do basic things. I have seen her forget to feed herself for a week. This was the last time she relapsed. Luckily she moved in with my grandmother in 2012.
12The rest of the day at the park is not important. My mother would leave at the end of the weekend, and I would only see her twice a year. The three years since the day at the park would be full of visits to the hospital, unpaid fines, and small spurts of jail sentences. I believe that I paid at least a fine a year, and helped pay her rent twice in that three-year period. Jimmy and Chris (both of her boyfriends) would abuse her, but she would never listen to me when I told her to move out. She was stuck in the cycle of violence. But Chris is now dead, and Jimmy is missing an eyeball. She would continue to call weekly when she could. Ten days ago she told me that people are calling her the black widow because all of her boyfriends are dying. The man who stabbed the other one in the eye passed away in his sleep, and this solidified her reputation as the black widow. I thought that these women received large sums of money from the deaths, but my mother only inherited Hepatitis C and infected skin at the injection site.