her blouses, her beautiful shiny black shoes with the buckles. I wanted to wear them, wanted to put them on even before I glimpsed the Christmas liplock between my stepmother and her ex.
Isabel would go dormant for a few years as my father plummeted into alcoholism, moving from job to job, his fights with good old Barb more often, more violent by the season. Isabel sunk down into my stomach, leaving me alone, fragile, and very vulnerable.
Halloween 1972 was spent in a very wet Houston, Texas.
Dad had moved us into an apartment in a sprawling apartment complex, one complete with a playground and a pool. My mother and her new husband were making a living on the road as truckers, so my only real anchor was my father's household. But his fights with Barbara, inflamed by their mutual love of bourbon, were a constant Friday night fixture.
And it all came to a boil that Halloween, I fancy, as Samhain lumbered through the cosmos, flying through the sky with Eris, sprinkling chaos and seeds of discord into the soil around our apartment.
Halloween was next Friday, but this Friday, this one that featured the sound of a breaking window, would mute it out.
"Goddamned you, you lesbo bitch." My father, drunk, roared at Barbara.
"You sonovuhbitch," Barbara returned, winding up for a slap, her long pale pitching arm winding up back at her hip until, until it was blessed by Eris, and guided by the goddess, was sent hurling through space to my father's pudgy face.
The slap was loud, it was proud, and it was an invitation to my father.
"You need to be tied up, don't you," my father yelled, randomly kicking over the coffee table, sending tumblers of bourbon to the orange carpeting.
Isabel would go dormant for a few years as my father plummeted into alcoholism, moving from job to job, his fights with good old Barb more often, more violent by the season. Isabel sunk down into my stomach, leaving me alone, fragile, and very vulnerable.
Halloween 1972 was spent in a very wet Houston, Texas.
Dad had moved us into an apartment in a sprawling apartment complex, one complete with a playground and a pool. My mother and her new husband were making a living on the road as truckers, so my only real anchor was my father's household. But his fights with Barbara, inflamed by their mutual love of bourbon, were a constant Friday night fixture.
And it all came to a boil that Halloween, I fancy, as Samhain lumbered through the cosmos, flying through the sky with Eris, sprinkling chaos and seeds of discord into the soil around our apartment.
Halloween was next Friday, but this Friday, this one that featured the sound of a breaking window, would mute it out.
"Goddamned you, you lesbo bitch." My father, drunk, roared at Barbara.
"You sonovuhbitch," Barbara returned, winding up for a slap, her long pale pitching arm winding up back at her hip until, until it was blessed by Eris, and guided by the goddess, was sent hurling through space to my father's pudgy face.
The slap was loud, it was proud, and it was an invitation to my father.
"You need to be tied up, don't you," my father yelled, randomly kicking over the coffee table, sending tumblers of bourbon to the orange carpeting.
