Chapter Seven: Turkish Thanksgiving

Ever since 1621, Americans have been celebrating Thanksgiving. What better way to celebrate our ability to exploit colored peoples than to gorge ourselves on the fruits of their labors? Beats me. Every year, Thanksgiving for my family usually means going to an aunt, uncle, or grandmother's house for typical gluttony. But the Thanksgiving of eighth grade year was different. I sought to expand my horizons.

Upon an invite, I asked if I could have Thanksgiving with Kerem's family this year. I was pleasantly surprised when both my mother and father obliged. I was excited to meet someone else's extended family, something I'd never really done. Kerem and I had grown into really good friends, and I felt this was the culmination of our friendship.

After quite a bit of effort spent trying to button my thirty inch pants around my thirty three inch waist, I was off to Kerem's adorned in some decent semi-formal attire. My mom dropped me off at Kerem's row home, asserting she'd be there to pick me up later.

I was under the impression that this Thanksgiving was going to be a simple gathering at Kerem's. Maybe a few of his relatives in the area would drop by. However, the plan was for me to tag along with Kerem's family and attend a relatively larger party at Kerem's aunt's house. It was roughly a twenty minute drive, nothing major. Actually, I was excited to meet even more of Kerem's relatives.

As soon as we arrived, I could tell things were going to be good. As I waded through Kerem's affable olive-skinned relatives I was delighted at how they embraced me. Despite the fact that I was one of only two white people there, I encountered smiling faces and engaging conversations universally. Plus, there was an abundance of succulent American and Turkish dishes. My already constricted tummy would have to wait for freedom. Kerem and I had even brought our skateboards. We got in a few good hours of hardcore ollies and extreme power slides.

By the end of the night, I was overcome with an encompassing feeling of joy - great food, great people, and I even got to skate some. We headed back to Kerem's house, and as expected, it was time for my mom to come pick me up.

"How was Thanksgiving with Kerem's family?"

"It was real fun. We spent most of the time at his aunt's house, though. I met a lot of his relatives, they were really nice."

"Wait, you went to his aunt's house? You didn't tell me you were going there."

"I didn't think it was a big deal, we just went there and came back."

"Why didn't you tell me you were going to his aunt's house! You lied to me!"

"I didn't think it mattered! It was just his aunt's house! What's the big deal?"

"It does matter! You lied to me! You never told me you went to his aunt's house!"

"Why's it such a big deal?!?! It was just his aunt's house!"

"BECAUSE I SAID SO! I'M YOUR MOTHER! AND YOU LIED TO ME!"

I couldn't comprehend her anger. I had a lingering feeling all through that day that my mom would see traveling to Kerem's aunt's house as fishy. I never acted on it. I didn't see the need to. My mistake, apparently it was a pretty big issue to my mom.

I was incredibly irate. I explained to my mom that she was beyond logic at this point. How could she be so upset over something so trivial? There was literally no objectionable point to me going to and from Kerem's aunt's house. Yet another yelling match over something completely avoidable. Fantastic. My mother and I both went to bed that night with bitter hearts; both of us stubbornly bent on the idea that we were each in the right.

The next morning, she recanted. I think my dad may have talked to her about her outburst, as well. She admitted she had stepped over the line. So what if I had gone to Kerem's aunt's house without explicitly telling her? I wasn't intentionally deceiving her, or trying to hide anything mischievous. We made up, timidly hugging.

And so things went back to business as usual. I didn't know at the time, or I just wasn't read to accept, that business as usual would include incidents like this on the regular for years to come.

Chapter Six: Andrew Walks Home

My idea of fun has changed a bit since the start of high school. Presently, for better or worse, I'm not usually satisfied anymore unless I'm pushing the envelope in some fashion. Without going too much into detail, just know that I like to flirt with the boundaries of my comfort zones. In contrast to how far I've come, at the dawn of my freshman year my lifestyle was a bit more deferential and placid. Whereas now, where even weekdays are susceptible to any number of mischievous shenanigans, my ideas about fun back then were contained to uncomplicated trips to Wal-Mart.

And so there I found myself on an uneventful Wednesday, early in freshman year, home alone after school. Kerem called. He wanted me to accompany him and his new Indian friend, Akash, to Wal-Mart. I could have stayed home and played Runescape in the basement, but hanging out with friends on a weekday was unheard of - simply too good of an offer to pass up. Kerem's grandfather picked me up shortly afterward.

Our trio was thus complete: me, Kerem, and Akash. We meditated on life's pressing issues. Finding dates for homecoming as freshmen, karate lessons and whoop ass, and other boyish matters of concern. However, one issue dwarfed all others; we needed to get some poster board from Wal-Mart, pronto.

Not that big of a deal, really, just about a mile and a half down various main roads through the heart of suburbanized northern Virginia. We made the trek with ease, and Wal-Mart was stocked with ample amounts of standard white poster board. We made another curious find as well. Flimsy, plastic Darth Vader masks, for about ninety cents each.

Just for kicks, Kerem put on the Darth Vader mask, whilst Akash and I put down our hoods so they covered our faces. In the midst of a massive disillusion that we were somehow bad ass Sith-looking motherfuckers, we began accosting Wal-Mart employees, James Earl Jones voice impression included. The reactions we drew validated my suspicions. We just ended up looking like a couple of regular lameass motherfuckers.

Retrospective embarrassment aside, we had fulfilled our goals. The time had come to return home. The sun was beginning to set, but we still had plentiful time before darkness set in. The walk back to Kerem's house was routine, and it was about time that my mom came and picked me up.

During the ride home, my mom posed the normal fair of questions.

"So what did you guys do?"

"We went to Wal-Mart."

"Oh, how did you get there?"

"We walked."

"YOU WALKED?! It's dark outside! You could have been hit by a car!!!"

"Well, it's dark now, but we walked back nearly an hour ago. There was still light out."

"I can't believe you walked to Wal-Mart! Cars can't see you, you could have died!"

"Well I didn't get hit by a car. They have sidewalks for a reason, mom. Chill out."

"DON'T TELL ME TO CHILL OUT! DO YOU WANT TO WALK THE REST OF THE WAY HOME?!?!"

And that was it. My 'crime' was walking to Wal-Mart during well-lit daylight hours, sticking to sidewalks, and obeying traffic signals. If I was going to get yelled at for doing nothing wrong, then I was going to let my mom know she was being absolutely ridiculous, oppressive, and deranged. I let her know how I felt.

But as we all know, families are hardly democracies. My mom followed through on her threat, something she scarcely does. My insubordination was rewarded with the joy walking home.

As I began hoofing it back to my house, I dialed up some friends. I needed to share this experience, I wanted to know if I had acted out of place. After all, had I seriously just been kicked out of the car because I walked to Wal-Mart? I called my dad, and he was none too happy with the situation. Unfortunately, his parental jurisdiction was limited on this quaint weekday evening. Retribution would have to wait.

Ironically, the path from the place I got kicked out of the car back to my house was longer, darker, and in a shadier neighborhood than the route from Kerem's house to Wal-Mart. Talk about out of the frying pan and into the fire. If my mom was honestly worried about me getting hit by a car before, she didn't show it. According to her own perverse logic, she would apparently risk me getting hit by an auto just so she could make a feebleminded point.

Frustration and hypocrisy at their finest. I still felt I was right, that my mom was behaving in an uncalled for manner. Whenever I bring up teenage rebellion in class, Mr. Monteverde always says, "Without hypocrites, nothing would get done."And I think his point has a lot of validity. But I don't think this is the kind of motherly hypocrisy he envisioned.

Chapter Four: The Beginning

It was the August before the 5th grade. I was on the eve of transferring to a new school. I knew I would face the challenges of succeeding in the more difficult G/T curriculum as well as making new friends. However, my worries soon dissolved in the shadow of more pressing concerns.

I vividly recall it was a humid day, and some of those late-summer thunderclouds were rolling low over the mountains from the west. The rain was violently pelting the ground by early afternoon, and I could tell my parents were having some issues. My father had been spending less and less time at the house. When he was home, I could hear him and my mother arguing through the floors more and more.

That day, during a particularly intense confrontation, I could hear the loud steps of aggressive footsteps. My parents voices penetrated the paper-thin walls and floors of my house, and eventually, my impressionable young mind. My mom began yelling for me to call the police. I ran upstairs, and one of the doors in the hallway looked like it had been knocked off its hinges. My mom emerged from the broken door, and was sure to position herself so that I was between her and my dad. It seemed like I'd interrupted right before their argument reached critical mass. By then they were both too ashamed to continue fighting. I shuddered to think what might have happened, had I not responded to my mom's cries.

I was ignorant of why a married couple would ever fight like that. I was typically confused, wondering whether it was my fault, or what I could do to make it all stop. Through my sobs, I yelled at both of them, chastising their heartbreaking behavior. Couldn't they stop and look at themselves?

They didn't realize how much they were hurting my sister and I. I couldn't be around them, so I bolted out the front door. I'd take the chills from the rain over the chills their arguing gave me any day. I walked around the local neighborhoods for a few hours, uncertain of the short and long term future. Eventually, with little else to do, the prospects of using the bathroom outside for much longer drove me back to the house. In my absence an artificial peace had fallen over things. My parents were able to put their issues temporarily aside for my sister and I, but irreparable damage had been done.

I feel there's strong evidence that this could have been the start of my mom's decline in emotional and mental health. I don't know if it is simply general poor memory of my life before this point, but it seems to me that something in my mom cracked during this time. Perhaps some deeply repressed childhood trauma had emerged from the shock of the situation. I don't think I'll ever know for sure.

It became clear in the weeks that followed that my dad would be moving out of the house. I begged and begged for both parents to reconsider. But according to both of them the separation was something that "had to be done."

As my mother, my sister, and I adjusted to life without my father, my mom very rapidly ascended to new heights of neuroticism and possessiveness. She began calling my dad on his cell during the evening hours, and quite often at that. When my Dad didn't pick up, my mom took matters into her own hands.

She would pack my sister and I into the car, and we'd drive around to the local bars, specifically the ones my dad liked to frequent. My mom didn't even try to disguise what she was doing. She'd say, "Let's go see if dad is at the Bungalow."

We would scan the parking lot for my dad's unmistakable red F-150 with the ladder rack on top. When we found it, my mom would lay her trap. She would send me into whatever bar, and have me ask my dad something innocent like, "We want to know if you're stopping by the house tonight." Although it probably should have been phrased as "Mom wants to know..."

From the moment I walked into these places, I knew I didn't belong. Not only was I well below the required age of twenty one, I was usually the only person there under thirty. It never occurred to me that I was only there to make my dad look like an irresponsible father. To make him feel sorry for going out while his 'wife' and children stayed home.

These kind of stakeouts became a regular occurrence.

Looking back, I get so frustrated thinking about how my mom used me for her own political ends. My dad was a fully grown man, legally separated from my mom. Further, my mom had requested custody of my sister and I, yet she was still trying to pass the burden of remorse onto my dad.

I've since talked to my dad about what happened. He told me when him and my mom first split up, he was heartbroken. I guess he might have turned to bars to be around friends, and numb the pain with some beers. My mom made it clear that she saw his outings as him shedding his familial responsibilities so he could get drunk and test the forty plus singles market. It was probably somewhere between the two, but I can't judge my father either way.

Neither of my parents have ever acquiesced to tell the whole story, but over the years my own detective work has shed some light on the specific details of my parents' break up. From letters and legal documents I learned what caused the fight in question, the one that left more things broken than just a hallway door.

One letter particularly struck me. It was written by my dad, addressed to my mom. Evidently, my mom had taken several hundred dollars of my dad's cash so she could go shopping for herself. He articulated that he had been saving that money, and intended to use it to get my sister and I nice school clothes. I could feel the anger in my fathers words, and I shared every ounce of it. Her betrayal trespassed on material and moral principle. This was the kind of stuff that belonged on a TV, on Jerry Springer, not in my life - past or present.

I guess you could stay this was the start of it, of everything. So God damn it, thanks, mom.