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The long house of divorce built in Phoenix... Memoirs 158
I was even surprised when I saw the length of the new house Dad essentially built in Phoenix. Mother had her nephew, an architect, make elaborate plans, which father ignored. He stepped off the house which was one reason the front room area was way too long. Gary, Mother's blood relation, had bad memories of working for Dad a couple of summers, but he accepted the scrapping of his free plan for his aunt with good grace. Mother did not. She was furious. A huge fight ensued over that outrage.
Sister Ann kept me well informed of all the preliminary fights Mother and Dad had over the building of their new home north of Bell Road in Phoenix. We were accustomed to all our parents' building projects becoming a battleground, but the building of the Phoenix house surpassed all others in the intensity of the wars. Finally, they moved into the house Mother now called a monstrosity, Mother turned up over to Ann's with choke marks on her neck. She said Daddy sincerely tried to choke her to death. If he had been stronger, Mother said he would have succeeded. She said she knew for sure he hated her now, and she was leaving this time for good. Because next time she knew he would have a weapon. Ann wished her well and said she didn't blame her, as Mother also said he had tried to lure her out in the desert a couple of times, too, where she was sure he meant to shoot her.
Ann and Tom by this time had moved on the same property, where Father had given them a generous lot for their trailer. Ann was teaching school west of Phoenix but they both thought the free rent was worth the drive, which was why Ann was not there to watch Father full time. She could not go north with him either, as he insisted on frequent jaunts to Boulder. She thought he needed someone besides her to look after him after Mother left. He was too insane and had too much money for us to try to ignore. She thought Father was having a serious nervous breakdown over the end of life with Mother.
But it was LaRae's misadventures with Daddy starting in Utah that precipitated a really desperate call for help to me. Daddy found out while he was up in Utah that Mother who had moved back into the duplex on Northern Avenue, had flown to Hawaii to scout for a business. Vic, a flashy French Canadian, who had formerly been a tenant, had flown there with her. I guess this was the first time anybody dared to tell Father that Mother was now hooked up with this blackguard. Father had already heard from Vic's wife who still lived in the apartment complex how many women Vic had married for their money and left when it was gone! Now to Father's rage, this gigolo would soon have all his money to throw away, too.
I believe Father immediately decided to go to Phoenix and file for his own divorce charging Mother with adultery to counteract her divorce granted for attempted murder. The separation of the assets was still pending. Father probably remembered back when Mother and Vic were riding to real estate school together every day, and a time when Mother disappeared for a week right there in Phoenix. Ann was sure then she was with Vic, and now Father probably was sure too. She had returned to build the new house he had generously offered to lure her back.
LaRae, who was trying to help Father adjust in Utah, soon found herself on the road to Phoenix with him, where she definitely did not want to go. Father and LaRae had gone past Kanab when he began to make alarming threats about what he was going to do when he got to Phoenix, which was namely take an axe he had thoughtfully put in the car when LaRae was not looking and go over and chop Mother's apartment door down plus all the furniture.
LaRae sincerely tried to persuade him this would not solve anything, would undoubtedly get him arrested, blah blah, and during this argument she became so upset she told Father to stop the car, she was not going one mile further with him talking nonsense. Father slammed on the brakes, she jumped out of the car, and he drove off in a cloud of dust leaving her standing there hollering and shaking her fist no doubt as she realized she had left her purse in the car which was rapidly disappearingdown the road toward Phoenix.
She was able to hitch a ride into the closest town where she thought she could get help which was Page. There she contacted our cop friends who had been coming to our rescue for some time. She had them put out an all points alarm for cops to watch for a man in a new gold Eldorado headed for Phoenix armed with an axe and intent to do bodily harm. He was to be picked up and detained. The cops assured her she would be taken by cop to his arraignment. To LaRae's disappointment, Father slipped through this dragnet.
She hurriedly called Ann who sent her husband Tom over to the duplex, where he and my cousin Max, who had been put in charge of her complex while Mother was gone, stood guard over the apartment. Sure enough Father eventually drove up and got out of his car with his axe in hand. He was getting ready to take a swing at the door when Tom stepped out of the shadows and said, "Now Clyde, you know we aren't going to let you do this. You need to calm down!" Ann said Father mumbled that he just wanted to chop up that love seat he bought her.
In the meantime the kindly cops gave LaRae enough money to catch the Trailway bus to Phoenix. I guess LaRae's main purpose in going to Phoenix besides securing her purse and all its important contents was to try to beat Father up. Ann reported that she tried to hit Father with the purse, but she was able to lead her away before she could do serious damage to him or he to her. Father immediately insisted that they get into the car and go back to Utah. You can tell he was in a frenzy.
LaRae by the weay was the only one of us ever to attack Father and try to beat him up. She had too much of Mother in her to take his outrageous behavior without recourse to violence. I wasn't strong enough to beat up anybody, so I just reasoned in a loud voice, which was why my presence was so badly needed the sisters said.
Besides LaRae could not leave her good job and take her kids away from their dad, Margie could not leave her good nursing job in Vegas, even though Dad was trying to give her a lot so she would move to Phoenix. Linda, the baby, was too prone to boo hoo when Dad yelled, besides he did not want her to get a divorce and come home yet. He was still frightened of her insanity. Just as he had been of mine, although his fear of mine had definitely abated.
I finally agreed to make a trip to Phoenix with Linda I think as soon as I got a couple of days off. (Sisters might have to tell me more about my trip. Details are becoming very dim) As many of the sisters as could be there would have a conference. And try to talk sense to Father. I really did not want to have to come back. My pleasant phantasy of a life with a nice civilized man like Gene was too sweet to think of interrupting, even though I knew that Gene was not ready for a relationship, let alone with a woman whose dad was an outlaw. No, it wasn't my fault. I could not help who I was born to, or could I? Maybe I had been an outlaw in a past life and this was karma and I deserved it. Gene just shook his head at my family troubles, as many men have done, only he was very kind.
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So much conflict I don't know how you all survived it all, but you did!
Yasmin
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Mother and Dad had actually moved into the house when this HUGE life-threatning
fight happened. She was ironing and threatened to burn him with the iron which he knocked out of her hand and got into the physical fight. She moved into an apartment in her apartment bulding. He stayed at the house, thinking they would work it all out, but she reactivated a divorce proceedings she had on hold and got into court (which he read about in the paper)...and went on her honeymoon with Vic. They were married in Idaho...and....the rest is there.
Who could worry about their own life with those two threatening death at every corner? We were just trying to keep them sane and alive.
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What a series of events! A house is not a home no matter how nice he builds it if love doesn't live in it. These two certainly couldn't have felt any kind of love for each other, nor enough for the children in ways that parents do. This mess carried over into your adult lives. It's an interesting read and LaRae sounds like the sort of character you shouldn't make mad. If given to her own devices, she may have rid you all of your father years before. Your Mother didn't deserve much sympathy from you girls either with her adulterous behavior right in front of you.
I hope that writing this one didn't take too much out of you. I was glad to read it but not at your expense.
Wishing you well,
Nelishia
http://journals.aol.com/nelishianatl/Prayingandbelieving/
4/29/08 1:47 PM
Lisa