MARIA BALLANTYNE
Written by Rick Archer

CHAPTER SEVEN: Abandoned

 

My College Escape Plan I had been planning my escape to college for years. Recently my situation had become more urgent than I could have ever anticipated.  With the daily drama of Little Mexico driving me out of my mind, I had to get out of my home soon or go stark raving mad.  It was almost crunch time. I would begin receiving my college acceptance letters in a couple of weeks.  Unfortunately, I still had no real idea how I was ever going to pay for college.  After sacking groceries for nearly two years at $2.50 an hour, I had a war chest of perhaps $1,000 at most.  It was a good start, but it wasn't nearly enough. I knew my mother didn't have a nickel to contribute.  My mother was so poor that I even had to pay the final St. John's books and meal bill just to graduate!  One night in May 1968, as I came home after work, my mother handed me a bill from Saint John's.   Along with the bill was a hand-written note written to my mother that said in order for her son to graduate, she would have to clear her debt to the school first.  Mom shook her head and apologized to me, but she was broke.  Incredulous, I stood there in silence looking at her.  I did not know what to say.  Finally I just went upstairs and shut the door.  I took the bill and stared at it.  Well, I wanted to graduate, didn't I? That didn't leave me with much choice.

The next day I went to the business office and wrote out a check for $450 from my own account.  Parting with that money was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do.  As I watched my $1,000 college fund shrink nearly in half to $550, I felt nauseous. 

I bet to this day I am still the only student in the history of Saint John's who ever cleared the final bill out of his own pocket. 

I don't think I need to say anything more about my mother's ability to help me with college tuition.

That left me with three other possibilities.  The first possibility was a sure thing.  The second possibility was a dark horse.  The third possibility was complicated.

The Jesse H. Jones Scholarship was my sure thing.  This award was given to one student a year from each high school in the Houston area.  If memory serves, it paid something like $1,000 a year at the time, $4,000 total.   I had known about this scholarship for some time. For the past two years, I had read the Houston Post and taken careful note of which person from Saint John's had won the award.  This year it was my turn. I was really counting on getting this scholarship.  I checked the mailbox constantly for any news.

Getting this grant was the foundation of my college plan. It meant to the world to me. 

The tuition at Georgetown, the college I wanted to attend, was $5,000 a year.  I anticipated living expenses would be another $1,000. I needed $6,000 to attend Georgetown.

If I worked my grocery job through the end of the summer, I would have $2,000 in savings.  Winning the Jones Scholarship would take me to $3,000.  Now I would be halfway there. 

This meant I would not need a full scholarship in my Freshman year.  Maybe I could get a partial grant.  I could make up the rest with a loan.  Then perhaps I could get a work-study job at school to pay for my living expenses.

This was a legitimate plan.  Sometimes at lunch I would run it past my friends.  They all agreed it made sense to them. 

One day my friend David added a new twist.  David said, "Gee, Rick, if you get the Jones Scholarship, couldn't you point your achievement out to your new school?  Why wouldn't winning this scholarship lead to another?  Winning the Jones Scholarship would make it easier for a college to recognize both your excellence and your need.  Maybe the college would be willing to make up the entire difference."

I liked David's logic.  Winning one partial scholarship would make it easier to win another partial scholarship.  That comment really boosted my hopes.

Besides, Even if I didn't get a full scholarship in the first year, I could study like crazy and show Georgetown I was worthy of increased scholarship aid in my second year.  All I needed was enough money to get started.  Once I was on campus, I could prove my value to them just like I had here at Saint John's.

I was optimistic about these plans. However, I was well aware that all my various strategies depended on getting the Jones Scholarship. 

So what were my chances?  I assumed I was a shoo-in.  I considered myself the top candidate and the only candidate.  I honestly didn't know who else it would go to if it didn't go to me. 

For starters, I had nearly the best grades in my class.  Better yet, the four people ahead of me were clearly not in any great need.  I know because I discretely asked each one of them if they had scholarships.  Every one of them smiled at my odd question and said no, but why did I ask?   'Just curious,' I mumbled.

I don't even know why I even bothered to ask.  I guess I was just feeling paranoid over the thought of losing the scholarship.  There was no doubt in my mind I was the poorest kid in the entire school.  Furthermore, I had been on full scholarship at St. John's for the past four years.  If St. John's thought I deserved a scholarship, surely the Jones Foundation would have no trouble reaching a similar conclusion.

I was obviously needy and deserving as well.

What else did it take?

Nevertheless, I could not shake my worry.  No matter how much my plans depended on winning this award, I had the worst feeling about this.  Something didn't feel right.  As the time of the announcement grew closer, I thought it was strange that I had not heard a word.

I didn't know how the Jones Scholarship worked.  Were we supposed to apply?  If so, no one at Saint John's had informed me.  Were students interviewed by a committee to assess need?  If so, no one had interviewed me. 

It bothered me that not one person in the school administration had said a word to me.  Surely I wasn't supposed to read the newspaper to find out whether I had won or not.  I was dying with anxiety, but I was far too inhibited to actually go ask someone how the process worked.  So instead I checked the mail daily.  There was no letter announcing my grant. 

This absence of any signs troubled me.  I was on pins and needles worrying about something that should have been a no-brainer.  From a no-brainer to a nail biter... something was wrong.  I was sure of it.  With each passing day, I grew more tense and more worried.
  

My Father My dark horse candidate for money was my father.  Although I haven't said much about him, I actually did have a father.  Well, sort of.  I wasn't counting on my father to pay my full tuition, but I hoped he would be willing to help me a little.  Dad was a talented electrical engineer.  I assumed he made enough money that he could spare a dime for me.  However, I had no idea whether he would come through or not. I was kind of skeptical.  After all, my father had really let me down at the end of the Sixth Grade. As a quick review, my parents were heading for a divorce when I was nine.  My problems at home resulted in some very poor grades at my public school.  In addition, my discipline problems were off the charts.  Mom was really worried about me.  After speaking with Dr. Mendel, my mother was convinced that St. John's was the only place that might give me the structure and the discipline I needed.  Acting on her psychiatrist's recommendation, she made sure as part of the divorce settlement that my father was legally responsible for paying my SJS tuition through the Sixth Grade.  It turned out that Dr. Mendel's advice was right on the money.  Entering in the Fourth Grade (1959), to my mother's delight, I made the Honor Roll in the first quarter at my new school.  Then I did it again in the second, third and fourth quarter.  My mother was thrilled with my school.  I had gone from lackluster grades in public school to becoming an Honor student at Houston's toughest academic school.  In fact, I would never miss the Honor Roll once in nine years.  Mom told every one of her friends what a remarkable difference this school had made!

Saint John's School quickly became the wonderful oasis of my otherwise miserable childhood.  After my poor performance in public school, one would assume that competing head to head with the best and the brightest would be too much for me.  Just the opposite had taken place.  As the psychiatrist had predicted, the academic challenge was exactly what I needed.  Okay, so maybe I had to work my butt off to keep up, but I thrived on the competition.  I enjoyed proving that I could hang with these smart kids.  I was exhilarated to discover I was just as smart as these other bright kids. 

Saint John's had worked a miracle! 

What a turnabout!  Most parents would have been thrilled.  However my father could have cared less.  Three years came and went. Although I was blossoming at the school, once he was no longer legally obligated, Dad refused to pay my tuition after the Sixth Grade.

That was 1962.  Dad sat me down to explain why he wasn't going to send me to Saint John's any more.  Dad told me he had a much better idea.  At the time, my father said he preferred to put aside the same money for my college tuition.  Better to let me go to public school and save all that grade school money for the future when it would really count! 

I remember how he put it. "I know how much you worry about everything.  But I have done research.  The public school here in Houston is excellent.  The hard thing is to pay for college.  Doing this my way means the money will be waiting for you when college time comes around." 

Needless to say, Dad's brilliant idea didn't go over too well in my book.  Saint John's had become my entire life.  However, the die was cast.  Dad was done paying. 

I was heartsick over the loss of my school.  I had my whole world wrapped around this place.  Mom could see how upset I was.  She was pretty upset herself. 

Fortunately some other people went to bat for me.  First Mr. Chidsey offered me a half-scholarship.  Then Uncle Dick and Aunt Lynn from Virginia stepped in to volunteer their help.  They paid the half-tuition to keep me at Saint Johns for two more years.  

This helps explain why I have always been so grateful to both Lynn and Dick.  I always felt I could count on my beloved Aunt and Uncle more than I could my own parents.  They were always very good to me. 

However, I couldn't say the same for my father.  I was incredibly hurt by my father's decision.  I wondered what I had done to make him turn his back on me like this.

My father and I had once been close.  As a little boy, I worshipped the guy.  I followed him around everywhere.  I remember watching in awe as he built his incredible train network.  Dad had this giant table covered with train tracks, mountains, tunnels, bridges and split levels galore.  It was a pretty amazing complex that took up nearly a quarter of the room.  I was absolutely mesmerized as two different trains crisscrossed the tableau.  I beamed.  I had the smartest father in the world! I think Dad liked me a lot.  As Aunt Lynn told me, back when I was a little boy, my father used to watch me with a look of pride that touched her deeply.  Dad and I spent a lot of time together.  We had a grand adventure when I was 8.  Dad and I embarked on a cross-country summer camping trip that took us all the way to the Grand Canyon. One night in Arizona we were awakened by bears who got into our trash outside the tent.  Dad had left some food out.  Unfortunately, we were the only ones at the campground.  There was no one around to save us if the bears came after us.  Boy, were we scared!  As we cowered in our tent, I can still remember Dad pulling out his prized Bowie knife. He told me not to worry; he was ready to defend us. I wasn't too sure if that knife was going to be enough, but fortunately the bears never bothered us.  We were both pretty shaken by the ordeal.  Not surprisingly, we stayed in motels for the rest of the trip.  So what?  Bears or no bears, that was a great trip!  Dad and I had a wonderful time together.

Sad to say, that 1958 trip would be our last real moment of happiness together. 

Not long after we returned home, the marital problems began.  My parents began arguing every single night of the week. My memory is that Dad started most of the fights.  He liked to pick on my mother.  He found fault at the drop of a hat.  Dad's favorite trick was to come home and run his finger across a bookshelf.  If there was any dust, he would chew my mother out for being lazy.  Why should he have to work so hard every day and come home to a dirty house?  What did she do all day, watch TV?

Those were fighting words.  That's when the fireworks would begin.  They couldn't care less that I was standing there watching them in horror.  When their voices began to rise, I soon learned to run to my room for shelter.  Pretty soon things would escalate and even meaner things would be said.  When the arguing got too intense, I would start crying in the solitude of my room with only my dog for comfort.  That was a really rough year for me.

I spent the following summer in 1959 at Aunt Lynn and Uncle Dick's house in Northern Virginia.  Why?  My parents were getting a divorce.  They wanted me out of town while they sold their house.  When I came back to Houston, there would be two huge changes awaiting me.

I would have a new home living with my mother and I would be starting school at Saint John's in the Fourth grade. 
 

Christmas 1959

After the divorce, Dad promised he would stay close to me.  He was good for his word.  During the Fall, I saw him practically every weekend.  Then something awkward happened that first Christmas. 

My father bought me this gigantic erector set complete with some kind of electrical motor included.  It was a very expensive set.  Dad was quite proud of his gift.  He suggested we immediately sit down and try something.  I was only 10, but I was old enough to understand this elaborate Christmas present was something Dad would killed for at my age. 

Dad took out the list of projects and looked it over.  He immediately suggested we build a drawbridge.  The drawbridge had elaborate instructions.  No problem.  He said all we had to do was follow the instructions.  What could be easier?

Dad handed me the tools and worked with me for a while.  I was game, but I didn't do very well.  This was way over my head.  When he realized how totally overwhelmed I was, Dad got the strangest look in his face.  I have a hunch that my father was able to build stuff like this when he was my age.  He looked at me with the most profound expression of disappointment.  He couldn't understand why I couldn't do this.  He couldn't believe how inept I was, especially when compared to his own immense natural ability. 

Something snapped in the man.  His face was crestfallen.  Dad had just discovered his son had no mechanical ability (it was the truth; I have none).  Noting his look of horror, my heart sunk as I saw how upset he was.

Impatient, he took the tools out of my hands and began to build the bridge himself.   He told me to watch carefully and he would show me how to do it.  Then I could do it by myself tomorrow after he took me back to Mom's apartment.  Sure, Dad. 

It was a big project.  To save time, Dad didn't even bother with the instructions.  Being an electrical engineer, this stuff was right up his alley.  My mother had once told me that Dad was a genius.  While I sat there watching him in action, I had no trouble believing it.

Three hours later, Dad finished.  It was a magnificent structure.    Dad was so proud of himself.  He looked at the bridge and beamed with great satisfaction.  Hit a switch and the drawbridge went up and down.  I could not help but stare at my father's accomplishment in amazement.  However, at the same time, I was sad.  I realized there was no way I could have done something like that.

Like me, my father had been an only child.  Noting the look of joy on his face, I had a strong hunch that when Dad was my age he had amused himself for hours on end building things just as complicated as this drawbridge.  I had just been given a snapshot in time to see how my father had coped with his own loneliness. 

Suddenly Dad snapped out of his reverie. Dad had been in a trance for the past three hours.  He had spoken to me, but his concentration was so intense that he barely knew I was there. Now he looked at me and frowned.  With a sinking heart, I got the message.  I had failed him.  I wasn't good enough.

After Christmas, Dad stopped seeing me.  At the time I was sick in my stomach.  He skipped a couple weekend visits.  He didn't call.  I assumed his absence had something to do with how badly I had done with the erector set.  What else was I supposed to think?  I missed him a lot.  My mother was still too angry about the divorce to get in touch with him.  That left me in the dark to assume his absence was all my fault.  I tried working with the erector set, but it was no use.  I had no aptitude and no real interest either.  This mechanical stuff was just not coming to me.  I concluded I wasn't very smart.  No wonder Dad was avoiding me.  He was ashamed of me.

Several months went by without a word.  Then one day Dad called and said he was coming to pick me up for our scheduled Saturday visit.  I was thrilled!  I got my father back!  I was going to be the best kid possible.  I even brought my prized erector set along just in case he wanted to give me another chance.  Maybe we could try something easier this time.  Dad frowned and said leave it home. 

When I got to his apartment, there was a woman waiting on the couch.  Dad introduced me to his new girlfriend.  Dad spent the rest of the day hanging out with her.  As I pretended to watch TV, I watched nervously out of the corner of my eye as the two of them played court and spark in the background.  I wasn't quite sure why Dad was ignoring me.  Didn't he miss me?  I guess his new girlfriend was better with erector sets than I was.

Then he drove me home.  What a great father-son Saturday. 

Abandoned

Once my stepmother came on the scene, my father more or less exited from my life. 

At first, his girlfriend was nice enough.  Let's call her Matilda... not her real name of course.  I remember having fun as the three of us played with wax and made our own candles one afternoon.  That remains my one and only positive memory of the woman.   

Dad married Matilda not too long afterwards.  From what Mom told me, she was once Dad's secretary.  Mom had suspected an office affair that pre-dated the divorce, but had no proof.  It took me a few years to figure it out, but the real reason Dad had skipped his weekends was to pursue his new flame.  It had nothing to do with me at all.  Too bad I didn't know that at the time.

After the wedding... which I was not invited to... the new wife quickly dropped the friendly act.  I decided I did not like Matilda.  The feeling was mutual; she didn't like me either.  My wicked stepmother was something out of Cinderella.  After a couple years, she preferred not to have me come to her house.  I was either 11 or 12.  I would never visit my father's home again.  

My father had two children by his second wife, a boy and a girl. 

Dad's behavior regarding the new family would become one of the great mysteries of my life.

There was quite an age gap.  I was 11 when the boy was born and 13 when the girl was born.  I was never included in his second family during the Saint John's years.  Although I had fleeting contact with them in adulthood, I would not recognize either of my half-siblings if I ran into them by chance. 

However, I know a lot about their stories. Dad had an odd habit of telling me all about his two children whenever we had lunch together.  The boy was somewhat mentally handicapped due to a problem during the birth process.  The girl was very talented. 

From what Dad told me over the years, he loved his new family.  I believed him.  Based on his stories, I came to the conclusion that he was a pretty good father to his new children.  In particular, Dad exhibited a patience and caring for his struggling son that I admired. 

And yet he was a worthless father to me.  And when I say "worthless", I really mean it.  It made no sense that he could be a good father to those children and yet totally fail me at the exact same time.  It was like he had a blind spot for me. 

My father had a rough childhood with several eerie parallels to my own.  My father was an only child like me.  Like me, he had only one eye... a falling brick from a stone wall had struck him as he walked home from school.  Like me, he had a rough battle with acne.  Like me, he had no father.  His father died of a heart attack when he was five.  My own father "died" soon after the divorce when I was nine.  To top it off, Dad lived alone with a wacko mother just like I did.  Money was always a serious problem.  And, like me, my father turned to academics as a salvation.  College and marrying the daughter of a wealthy man were his tickets out of poverty. 

I used to think that if anyone would understood the loneliness I was going through, it would be my father.  But if Dad understood my pain, he never let on.  We didn't talk about things like that.  If anything, at times his neglect seemed deliberate. I often wondered if Dad was determined to make sure I didn't have a father just like he didn't have a father.

For a while, I wondered if he suspected I was illegitimate.  Maybe when he saw what a failure I was at the erector set, that was all the proof he needed.  But I can't imagine why he would believe that. Every age comparison picture shows I had a strong resemblance to my father.  In addition, my mother had the world's biggest mouth.  She would say anything she felt like saying.  Not once to the end of her life did Mom suggest there was anything suspicious.  So I doubt this was the explanation.

When I was growing up, there was a goofy Johnny Cash song called A Boy Named Sue.  It relates the improbable tale of a father who knew he wasn't going to be around his son much, so he named the boy "Sue" to toughen him up.  My father paid so little attention to me during the nine-year stretch after the divorce that I often wondered if my father's neglect was his own bizarre attempt to toughen me up. 

Whatever his reasons, the fact remains that Dad dropped me like a hot potato after the new children came on the scene.  I assume his new wife interfered in some way, but it is difficult for me to understand why my father would allow this woman's presence to dissuade him from seeing me.  

A Very Busy Man

Starting when I was in Sixth grade, for the next seven years of my Saint John's tenure, I estimate my father saw me about three or four times a year.  My nickname for Dad was "Four Seasons."   He would see on my birthday in the Fall.  He would see me at Christmas.  He would see me once in the Spring.  Then he would see me once every other Summer.  Sometimes he skipped summer because it was too inconvenient to pick me up at my mother's apartment.  Dad always preferred to pick me up at school.

My father once told me he didn't see me very often because he was forced to see me on the sly.  He alluded to his wife's unexplained resentment towards me as the reason.  I believed what he said about his wife, but that was still no excuse not to see me.  Even if Dad was terrified of the woman, it would have been effortless for him to see me behind her back.

So what city did my father live in that kept him from seeing me more often?  LA?  NY?  Dallas?  Denver? 

My father lived in Houston.  In fact, my father worked just down the street from Saint John's.  His office was a mile away at the corner of Westheimer at Weslayan. Three times a year, Dad would pick me up at school, take me to a nearby restaurant for lunch, then drop me back off.  With such proximity, I wondered why didn't he see me more often.  How hard would it be to take me to lunch every couple weeks or so?  Or once a month? Heck, I would have ridden my bike to his office!  5 minutes tops.  All he had to do was snap his fingers.  Better yet, his witch of a wife wouldn't even have to know he was seeing me.

Or what about calling me on the phone to chat?  Nah.  Dad wasn't much of a phone guy.  During one of our infrequent lunch hours, my father made it clear he didn't want me phoning him at home.  I knew what that meant.  We wouldn't want to take the chance of upsetting the Wicked Stepmother, now would we?

Dad said he was really busy, but if necessary I could call him at work.  When I heard the words "if necessary", that really pissed me off.  What he was really saying was "Don't call unless you have to."  Thanks a lot.

I took him at his word.  I didn't ever want to bother the Busy Man unnecessarily. The only time I ever called the man in all those years was in 1964 to beg for help paying for the dermatologist... it was "necessary". 

It is important to note my father did help me in one highly important way.

For nine long years, once a month like clockwork, Dad sent my mother $100 in child support.  Not once did he fail us.  Dad met his responsibility just like he was supposed to all the way until my 18th birthday.  My mother and I were highly dependent on the money. Sometimes Mom couldn't go grocery shopping till that check showed up.  Unless Mom wanted to bounce another check, there were times when that money was the difference between eating or not eating.  I recall many times coming home from school and checking the mailbox immediately to see if Dad's check had arrived yet.  Why?  Because I was hungry. I wanted Mom to go shopping that night.

Our heavy dependence on that check put Mom in a really tough spot in my Senior year.  Due to an odd circumstance, I lost a half year of school due to my father's job transfer from Maryland to Houston.  Back in the Fifties, the State of Texas had a weird split-year educational program.  Even though I had already begun the First grade in Maryland, in September 1955 the Texas school system made me return to Kindergarten for half a year.  This meant my school year started in January for the next three years. 

When Saint John's accepted me, I had already been through half a year of the Fourth Grade.  However Saint John's did not operate on a split year system.  So when I started school at SJS in September 1959, it was either promote me forward to the Fifth Grade or make me start the Fourth Grade over again.  Starting the Fourth Grade over made more sense.  However, this meant I was almost a year older than my classmates.   

When I turned 18 in October of my Senior year in high school, without warning my father abruptly stopped paying child support.  On November 1st, there was no check.  Nor was it there on November 2nd.  This was unlike my father.  It was always there on the first or second day of the month.  My mother was frantic.  Then it dawned on her.  She had forgotten about the significance of my 18th birthday a week earlier.  My father's decision had taken her completely off guard. 

Considering Mom was having trouble meeting the note on her new house, this bad news created a real hardship. She begged me to help. I detested this house, but I hurt for my mother's plight.  So I handed her a check for $75 from my grocery money just to make the current note.  By the time the next note came around, Mom had found a man named Ramon to move in with us and help pay the bills.

Now that my own pocket was $75 emptier, I was mad at my father.  The original agreement was that Dad would help with child support till the end of high school, but apparently my mother's lawyer didn't do the math right nine years earlier.  For most kids, 18 would take place in their Freshman year in college. 

Well, too late now. This meant my mother with her meager resources was stuck with the full financial responsibility for seven more months.  That said, my father was within his rights to stop paying, so I never said a word to him about it.  I just shook my head.

Over the years, my father's reliability on the child support was the only reason I continued to cling to hope we could be close again.  I definitely appreciated his contribution because that money played a critical role in my life.  However, other than the child support plus his help with the acne ordeal, this man was completely useless to me as a father during my entire nine years at St. John's.  It was much too much trouble for him to be involved in my everyday life.  Too busy. 

Dad preferred to limit our time together to one very cheerful hour of lunch every three months, so I accepted his decision.  He would leave a message at school and pick me up the next day.  Although I remained perpetually disappointed in my father, oddly enough I always enjoyed seeing him.  Whenever we were together, Dad was invariably nice to me. 

Given his weird attitude towards me, one might conclude my father was a cold man.  On the contrary, Dad was warm. 

Well, maybe I should qualify that.  Like me, my father was a loner at heart.  Being an only child does that to people.  However, Dad's first job out of college was as a salesman for electrical systems.  Like my tip money at the grocery store, Dad had to develop a personality or flounder.  So he learned the art of his trade.  He was never late to a meeting, he learned to greet people with an impressive display of warmth, he was always well-prepared and he could be persuasive when necessary. 

I could see that Dad was definitely well-liked at work.  He introduced me to the other people at work from time to time.  He liked to show me off.  Go figure.  Dad seemed to get along with everyone.  If my father had an enemy in the world, he never told me. 

Furthermore, when we were together, he was always friendly, always affable. I am not kidding.  Dad always seemed genuinely happy to see me.  He would smile like I was his best friend in the whole world.  Of course I knew my father was phonier than a three dollar bill.  Dad had a terrific public mask. Much of that warmth was his salesman's personality.  

I guess when you spend four hours a year with your kid, you can smile with the best of them.  Dad decided to bypass the typical father-son relationship.  Instead he developed a buddy-buddy rapport with me.   Dad kept every conversation superficial between us. If he had a guilty conscience, he kept it well hidden from me.  He was more like your friendly uncle who prefers to avoid talking about anything uncomfortable.  I don't recall one single word of criticism from him the entire 48 years I knew him.

I don't recall much guidance either.  I can only recall one word of fatherly advice in all those years.  It came when I was 27.

I was trying to buy a house.  I explained my financial situation to my father not because I expected him to help me, but just so he could evaluate how much of a risk I was taking.  My father emphatically warned me not to buy that house.

I was surprised at the energy he showed.  This was out of character for him.  I certainly understood his concern.  I knew I was taking a chance.  As a social worker who didn't have much income, scraping the money together for a down payment on a $27,000 cottage in the Heights was a monumental effort.  But on the other hand, my monthly house payments would not be much more than the rent on my current apartment.  I asked Dad what his objection was.

Dad's exact words were "There are always unexpected expenses and you have absolutely no savings left. You are going to lose your shirt."

Today my house is paid for and valued at $400,000.  I may not have had mechanical ability, but I am not nearly as stupid as my father seemed to think I was. 

During the infrequent times we met, there was little discussion of my progress at school.  I don't recall Dad showing interest in my studies which seems kind of odd now that I think about it.  I never did quite figure out when I became the Dad and he became the Kid, but that's sort of what happened.  We never talked about me very much.

Instead I spent most of my time listening to my father either talk about his job or complain about his problems with his children.  Dad frequently brought up the financial difficulties of raising his two children in his second marriage.  I understood that Dad was trying to signal his lame excuse for why he never offered me a penny he wasn't obligated to share.  Don't worry, Dad, I got the message.

Not surprisingly, I lay much of the responsibility for this pathos on the doorstep of my wicked stepmother. I was a 10-year old kid when the brush-off began. On the surface, the woman's behavior never made any sense.  What sort of threat could a lonely little kid like me have possibly been to her marriage?   Was she insecure about the strength of her new relationship?   Beats me.  I will never know the reason why Matilda did not want me anywhere near my father.  I have written about the kindness of people like my school teachers and the manager at the grocery store.  At times when I was out of control in my life, these were people who took a big chance on me when it wasn't their job to do so.  My stepmother was a person who went totally in the opposite direction.  She never lifted a finger to help me.  Not one single time.  In fact, she made my life so much more difficult by taking my father away from me. Here I was an only child with a dysfunctional mother.  My mother was a good person, but she was perpetually lost at sea.  I needed my father a great deal, but for the rest of my life this cold woman found a way to keep us apart.  I don't know how she did it or why she did it, but there is no denying she hammered a giant wedge between my father and me.  Why?  I never did a single thing to hurt her. I will never forgive this woman.

The Last Laugh Despite all my intense bitterness at my father's seemingly deliberate absence during my childhood, after college I made the conscious choice that I preferred to keep him in my life.  I am glad I did. My father and I remained friends throughout my adult life.  I felt a similar bitterness towards my mother albeit for different reasons.  My mother nearly pushed me off the deep end when I was growing up.  However, for all her shortcomings, I never forgot that at least she was the parent who tried.
As adults, Mom and I never worked through our differences. We were cordial, but never close.  That said, I still felt an obligation to care for her. So I bought the house next door to me and gave it to my mother.  Although we continued to lead separate lives, I was at least able to keep an eye on her. The major reason I chose to keep my father in my life was self-serving. I secretly hoped that one day my father would explain his reasons for abandoning me after being so damn wonderful to me in my early years.  Every time I sat down for lunch I wondered if today would be the moment when he explained his curious behavior. Unfortunately not once did my father ever bring up the subject of my childhood.  From what I gather, my mother and father managed to reconcile late in life.  I did not learn this until my mother was in her dying days.  However, this revelation did not completely surprise me.  On my 1984 wedding day to Pat, my first wife, I had been curious over the fact that my father and mother seemed unusually friendly.  Every time I turned around, the two of them were talking and laughing together.  Judge for yourself.

Who knows, whatever secrets my parents shared might explain Matilda's unexplained lifetime of frost directed at me.  It wouldn't surprise me at all if my father renewed his friendship with my mother as a deliberate slap to his wife.  Mind you, this is all conjecture.  All I can say is that I have spent my entire adult life trying to figure out why so many people made growing up so difficult for me.

Here's a story that says it all.  I was 48 when I learned my father was in the hospital.  Dad had been sick for some time with a long list of different health problems.  Dad coped for a while, then one day took the ominous turn for the worse.  My half brother left a message on the answering machine that Dad was in the hospital.  When I got to the hospital, my father saw me at the door and waved to me from his bed.  His eyes lit up with an unmistakable sparkle at my appearance.  The  spontaneous warmth in his gesture really touched me.

I noticed with alarm that my father was unable to speak due to a respirator in his mouth.  That's when I realized this was serious. 

Unfortunately, Matilda also saw me before I could enter the room.  She sprang to her feet and stepped forward to block the door.  Although my father was obviously conscious, Matilda said he was too weak to see me.  Why not come back tomorrow? 

My father was on his death bed and this woman still couldn't bear to share him with me.  How pathetic.  Did she have no shame? 

I stared at the woman in disbelief.  This was the first time I had seen Matilda since I was 12, but she hadn't changed a bit.  She was still a nasty, small woman.  The nerve of her to talk to me like I was the same pitiful little kid who missed his Daddy.  

I should have told her to get the fuck out of my way.  I certainly wanted to.  The back of my hand itched for the chance to slap her silly.

But I was too mannerly for that.  It never occurred to me I wouldn't get another chance.  So I dutifully obeyed her wishes.  Without a word, I turned and left.

I came back the next day, but Dad had slipped into a coma.  I came back one more time, but he remained unconscious.  Things didn't look good.  Sure enough, a day later, another phone message from my half brother gave me the bad news. 

You would think Matilda would have gotten enough satisfaction from sabotaging my farewell moment with my father on his deathbed, but she had another trick up her sleeve.  What she didn't realize is that I anticipated her move.

For the next couple mornings, I looked in the newspaper to see if my father's obituary was posted yet.  I was worried because I had not heard anything on the answering machine about when the funeral was scheduled for.  Maybe the paper would have a clue.

The third day after my father's passing, I was eating breakfast when I saw there was indeed a notice in the paper.  I was so stunned at what I saw, I choked.  The milk from the cereal came up my nose.

I realized Dad's funeral service had just started!  That's right, the service started at 10 am and 10 am was the exact moment I happened to look at the paper.  I was stunned.  Did these people have no decency?  Rage overcame me.  I knew Matilda was a sack of slime, but I assumed my half-brother or half-sister would step forward and do the right thing.  Obviously not.  I could not believe these people would not even lift a finger to leave a message about the service.  I assumed my brother and sister had been forbidden to do so by the Wicked Witch of the North.

Panic-stricken, I put the cereal in the sink, ran to my car, and sped to the church.  I got there in time to catch the final 30 minutes of the service.  As I entered the church, it gave me enormous satisfaction to sign the Guest Book.  Mine was the last name entered, so I put it on a page by itself... right where she could see it.  I underlined my last name for good measure.

Matilda would surely fume when she realized I had discovered her treachery.  It was no accident that I had checked the paper every day.  From the moment I learned of my father's passing, I expected this was exactly the sort of stunt the woman would pull. 

I was the last person to enter the service.  I was wearing the same tee-shirt and blue jeans I had on at breakfast.  Well aware of how poorly I was dressed, I sat alone in the very back.  As I looked around the church, I estimated there were about 100 people there.  I still could not believe my stepmother did not even have the courtesy to tell me about my father's funeral.  She must have been exhausted from contacting the other 100 people who seemed to have gotten the message.

When the service ended, I left quickly.  No point in sticking around where I wasn't wanted.  How utterly predictable it was for Matilda to spite me like this.  Well, I got the last laugh. 

As I drove home, I asked myself over and over what kind of man lets his second wife bully him into avoiding his own child.  

A month later my half-brother called me.  They were cleaning Dad's things out.  My father hadn't mentioned me in the Will, but there was all this stuff laying around.  Did I want any of it?

Yes, actually there was something.  My father was a Civil War buff.  So was I.  During one of our final lunch dates before his death, my father and I had a long talk about Gettysburg.  As I listened to my father relate the story of Little Round Top and Joseph Chamberlain's heroic stand, I realized my father knew a heck of a lot more about the Civil War than I did.  I asked him how he knew so much.  He explained that he had been collecting Civil War books his whole life.  He added that he was very proud of his collection. 

As I recalled that conversation, I decided it would be a nice gesture to honor my father's memory by reading his book collection.  I was pretty certain that neither my half-brother or half-sister were interested.

So I replied, "Can I have my father's collection of Civil War books?"

My brother said of course, that was a great idea. 

A couple days later, my brother asked me to meet him at some pizza place on Silber Road.  We shared a pizza and talked about our father.  It was the longest conversation I had ever had with my brother in my life.  I knew my half-brother had faced an uphill struggle throughout his life due to his handicap.  Now as we shared a beer, my brother explained as best he could just how much my father had helped him deal with his problem his entire life.  I smiled wistfully.  Interesting. 

As we were about to part, my brother went to his car and came back with three scrawny paperback books.  One was about baseball, one was a Harlequin romance novel, and one was about the economic superiority of the North during the Civil War.  This wasn't what I asked for.  I looked at him closely to see if he grasped the immensity of the insult.  No, he had no idea.  I was sure of that.  I could tell from the warmth we shared earlier that he wasn't playing any tricks.  I knew what this meant. I had a pretty good idea where to place the blame.

I smiled grimly.  Obviously my brother had made the mistake of letting his mother know what I wanted.  I guess I didn't get the last laugh after all.

But then again, maybe I did.  I have enjoyed telling this tale.
 

Dad's College Surprise

Let's return to my Senior year in high school.  During the last week of February 1968 in the midst of my Little Mexico fiasco, my father left a message at school for me to meet him for lunch.  It must have been time for our annual Spring visit.  Since I had my own car, I drove over to the restaurant the next day.  By chance, it was February 29th thanks to Leap Year.

As always, Dad was already there was waiting for me in the lobby.  The first thought that crossed my mind was that I wished I had inherited his amazing punctuality.  I can still remember how his face lit up when he saw me.  He had the biggest smile on his face.  Dad was so excited to see me that I actually felt a wave of suspicion.  Dad was clearly in Salesman mode, but he was overdoing it.  What's up here?

Dad took me by the arm and escorted me to our table.  Once we were seated, he put $400 in cash down on the table.  Four crisp $100 bills.  I frowned.  I knew what this was.  But I played stupid.  "Gee, Dad, what is this for?"

Dad was beaming with pride.  He announced this was the money he had saved up for my college tuition.

Look, Son, it's Four Hundred Dollars!  See, I'm helping!  I am doing my part!  This will help you go to college!

I stared in disbelief.  The tuition at the colleges I had applied to was $4,000-$5,000 a year.  And what about room and board?   And what about the next three years after that?  

$400 was a drop in the bucket.  This would pay for perhaps 2% of my college expenditures.  What was he thinking?  And yet here he was, grinning from ear to ear at the amazing contribution he had just made.  You would think Dad had just won Father of the Year.

I was sick.  I was beyond sick.  I was disgusted.  Unfortunately I was far too introverted to confront him. I wasn't the most confident kid in the world.  Don't forget, I was coping with huge psychological problems at this time.  It was extremely difficult for me to be assertive.

Instead of saying something, I just stared at the money dumbfounded.  I didn't even touch it.

I guess Dad figured out that something was bothering me.  How perceptive.  While I sat there in shock, Dad used my silence as an opening to inform me how tough things were for him financially at the moment.  Where have I heard this before?  As he talked, all I could think about was how expensive it had to be sending my half brother to his expensive private school.  Gee, poor Dad, no wonder it was so hard for him to help me!

As my father rambled on and on about all his problems, all I could think about was that promise he had made to help me with college back in the sixth grade.  Did he think I had forgotten?  It was now six years since that promise.  So in six years, Dad had amassed the princely sum of four hundred dollars.  Hmm, let's see. Gosh, Dad, that's 67 bucks a year!  Wow.  Good for you.  How did you manage to save up so much money in just six short years?

Mind you, I didn't say that.  But I thought it.  Dad had promised to convert all that saved tuition into a college fund. So I did some quick math.  Saint John's tuition back in the Seventh Grade was $800 and again in the Eighth Grade.  The tuition in the Upper School was $1,000-$1,200 per year.  By refusing to pay my tuition after the Sixth Grade, Dad had saved himself approximately $6,000. 

And somehow Dad had managed to convert those savings into the princely sum of $400.  What an achievement!

There was something bothering me.  Why cash?  That didn't feel right. And why $400?  That seemed like such an odd amount.  Why not a nice round number like $500 or $1,000?   Or better yet, why not a check made out to me with an exact number like $401.42?   A number like that would indicate interest accrued from a savings account.  Plus the absence of a check indicated there probably was no savings account to begin with.  Hmm. 

In a flash I had it.  I knew where that $400 had come from.  Dad had skipped paying his regular $100 in child support starting in November.  Let's see.  November.  December.  January.  February.  That's it.  Dad had cleverly avoided telling his wife that he was no longer obligated to pay child support.  That allowed him to withdraw $100 a month without suspicion.  It made complete sense. 

Now I had another flash.  It was February 29th. For the past nine years, Dad had written a check for $100 on the last day of the month and mailed it to my mother.  I was sure that Dad had gotten the money from the bank before coming to see me today. He would likely write "child support" in the check register to explain today's $100 withdrawal.  His wife would never suspect a thing. 

Well well well.  Isn't Dad the sly devil? 

Today I was Dad's secret mistress.  This was forbidden money being redirected to me behind his wife's back.  Then it occurred to me that my father knew very well how to sneak behind his wife's back when he wanted to.  If it was this easy to trick her, why did he blame his wife all those years for not seeing me more often?  I knew the answer.  Dad didn't come to see me because he didn't want to.  And he used his wife as his excuse.

Dad interrupted my angry thoughts by saying this was probably going to be his one and only contribution towards my college education.

Why was I not surprised? 

At this moment, Dad's immortal words from six years earlier crossed my mind... "Doing this my way means the money will be waiting for you when college time comes around." 

I felt totally humiliated.  I was especially angry at my inability to confront him with his hypocrisy.  Heck, I was so beaten down at this point I couldn't stand up to anybody, much less my own father. 

Besides, what good would it do to tell him what a jerk he was?   Resigning myself that this was it, I accepted what little money he had to offer and said thank you. $400 was better than nothing.  So that was that.  I mumbled something about studying for a test this afternoon and said I had to go.  I got up and left him sitting there.  The conversation had not lasted very long.  I don't think I even bothered to order lunch.  Save your money, Dad.  You obviously need it worse than I do.

Now as I drove away in my little VW Bug, I seethed inside.  I was angry, but even more I was really hurt.  Here I was one of the very best students at the finest school in Houston, but my father treated me like I was worthless.  Okay, so maybe I didn't have any mechanical ability, but at least I did well in school.  It wasn't like I was stupid.  Did he have any idea how hard I tried, how hard I studied?  Wasn't he impressed that I worked 20 hours a week after school?  Would it hurt to offer me a word of praise once in a while?

Today's pathetic show of fatherly concern had badly missed its mark.  Instead I felt completely insulted.  Did he honestly think his nine years of indifference towards my Saint John's education could be erased with this weak gesture?   His attitude towards me made no sense.  Why did my own father think so little of me?

The ironic thing is, my father had money.  Certainly not mega-bucks, but my father was definitely upper middle class in income.  My father was one of the finest electrical engineers in all of America.  He was so well-respected in his field that he was asked to do many important projects.  For example, Dad once designed the electrical system for the cranes that held the space rockets at Cape Canaveral.  Another difficult assignment was designing a crane system that safely removed spent radioactive rods from nuclear reactors.

Dad was called in to rescue projects that others had failed at.  He told me about a problem in the logging industry up in northern Canada.  Freezing temperatures had licked the two previous engineers.  Both men had given up in disgust only to see Dad succeed where they couldn't. He was able to design a fail-proof electrical system for cranes that could withstand the sub-arctic deep cold. 

Then of course there was his favorite story about the UFO.  Dad was asked to design a crane for some secret aircraft in New Mexico.  Only one problem - he wasn't allowed to visit the site.  Dad had to design the crane strictly from specifications.  Due to the sensitivity of the operation, the military kept withholding information.  All this secrecy led to unexpected problems, so naturally the project hit some snags.  My father put his foot down and insisted on seeing the site.  Still he was refused.  However Dad was at least given a direct on-site liaison to be his eyes on the ground.  From what I gather, this man had the clearance to tell my father whatever he needed to know.

The liaison and Dad hit it off. Dad would ask a question and the liaison would get back to him within an hour.  At some point, the liaison decided he could trust my father.  He indicated the aircraft was some sort of silver, shimmery prototype that was able to hover noiselessly above ground, then accelerate at the blink of an eye.  Dad said he thought this "prototype" story was nonsense.  Dad was convinced it was a captured UFO.  I have no way of verifying the story; I will simply say I am reporting truthfully what my father shared with me. 

Now here is my point.  My father was no ordinary engineer.  He was very gifted.  Dad was widely known for his ingenuity and his ability to innovate.  He was able to solve tricky problems that left other engineers scratching their heads.

That brings us back the great mystery of my life, the one I have never solved.  I assume my father was financially rewarded for his talent.  Most people with his special kind of ability are.  Dad made enough money to buy a home in a well-to-do area known as West Memorial.  Dad was able to send my half-sister to Kinkaid, an expensive private school with a tuition identical to Saint John's.  Later Dad helped her go to Tulane, the fine university in New Orleans.  Dad also spent a great deal of money sending my handicapped half-brother to a special education private school here in Houston. 

I have no doubt that my father's salary was stretched thin, but he obviously did have money for what he considered important. 

Therein lies the rub... Dad had money for what he considered important.

From what Dad told me and from what my half-brother confirmed, my father spent his retirement years devoted to helping the handicapped young man cope with life in many important ways.  At the same time, Dad was able to help my half-sister go to law school at SMU.  Based on what he told me, it seemed to me like Dad was a pretty good father to those two kids.  He seemed to go out of his way to provide for their future. 

Now, mind you, I don't begrudge the attention he gave to those two children.  I have no issues with either of them.

But I just don't get it.  Why did Dad function as a good father to those two children and totally ignore me? 

How much sense did that make?  Dad was good to me when he was married to my mother.  The change came when he remarried.  What kind of evil spell did the Black Magic Woman cast over this man?  Why did my father refuse to stand up to her? 

But then again, why did I keep blaming the witch?  Because I didn't want to admit the truth. 

Maybe my father avoided me because he wanted to.

I looked at the $400 again.  I had thrown the four bills on the car seat beside me in disgust.  My father didn't want to pay for my education, but he had no problem paying tremendous amounts of money for the education of my two half siblings.

Now I began to cry.  The money problem was depressing enough, but most of all I wondered why my own father didn't love me. 

What the hell was wrong with me?
 

CHAPTER EIGHT - Cheated