The End of the Shituation

What happens when a mother of three with narcissistic personality disorder shuns work and gets banned from welfare for four years? A Shituation. In January 1984, Delta, my biological mother, insisted on leveraging her inheritance by selling the home her mother had left her despite having no plan for sheltering us once the money was gone. Here’s Shituation math: number of kids in the family determined monthly benefit amount; cash acquired through the sale of Grandma’s house was divided by benefit amount; the result was the number of months she was ineligible for any cash or food stamp assistance. Forty-eight.

Delta had always claimed a back injury, and something in me never felt the injury was enough to warrant her not working, likely the fact that she lived for dancing at trucker bars and having sex with truckers: you need a decent back for both. In addition to truckers, her vices were cigarettes, painkillers, and muscle relaxers. After only half a year, profusion became pittance. We weren’t just poor, we were destitute. Everything my industrious grandparents had worked so hard for was gone, consumed mostly as extravagant meals at home, alcohol for her and her drinking buddies at the bars, and pills. We flickered through the last half of 1984 on fumes and the goodwill of friends, but 1985 and 1986 saw us living in a Pinto, staying at a cheap motel, with relatives, and finally at my Uncle Beer’s trailer, where we primarily lived on pancakes (smothered in mayonnaise when the Food Bank didn’t have syrup), dried beans, and cornmeal mush.

By 1987, I was 11. My oldest brother, Foxtrot, was 21 and finishing up his service in the National Guard. His experience of The Shituation differed from mine; he was deployed to boot camp, then worked and lived on his own nearby. Tango, my other brother, was completing his senior year of high school. He’d had to sleep in the car and motels with us the second year of The Shituation, but as his graduation approached, he was, thankfully, able to stay with friends. Mostly, it was just me and Delta. And Jon Bon Jovi, my crush, my hero, my everything, whose image graced a poster that I carried around with me like a delicate treasure. This poster showed Jon in jeans and a gray jacket, with scarves, hands on hips, framed by a pink and purple background, and when we weren’t sleeping in our car, I hung it up every chance I had. My leaning on it for comfort was, I believe, the beginning of maladaptive daydreaming for me, when I began to see the people depicted in posters as real people–potential saviors who could swoop in and whisk me away. That final year of the Shituation was, by far, the hardest; this is a mere fragment of what we experienced during those years. Someday, I’ll write the whole story. For now, I’ll share with you the remarkable Christmastime ending, the warm glow at the end of our tunnel, the rebirth of hope for a road-weary pre-teen.

Spring 1987

“Jon,” I said, feeling as though his embrace could carry me through anything, “I don’t want to go to school here. The kids will laugh at me because I don’t have cool clothes, and I’m fat.” This would be the third school I’d attend this year.

“You are not fat,” he said firmly. “Everything is going to be all right.” His reassurance was a balm to my small, burdened soul, and I burrowed deeper into him, feeding off his strength. I felt the truth of his words. Everything would be all right. I lingered in his arms a little longer, until Delta bellowed that it was time to go. Reluctantly, I headed for the door.

We’d begun 1987 living with a plump airman in whom Delta was romantically interested, though his interest in her was more temporal in nature; transactional, even. Delta was babysitter to his three kids, housekeeper, and bedwarmer. But by April, he’d tired of her and asked us to move on. From there, we stayed with a woman Delta met through the airman. She was nice enough, but her son was a little jerk, and the way her weekend boyfriend leered at me made me nervous. Still, it was better than sleeping in our car.

Mid-May delivered another live-in sitter gig, this time in a crime-riddled city. Something about the locale, or just my bone-weariness, made me beg Delta not to enroll me there. Fortuitous, since it was only a week before she was fired and we had to move again. Late May brought the fourth live-in position, where I was, sadly, forced to attend another new school, until Delta was fired again a week later. We headed back to the small town where I’d begun fifth grade, and I completed the school year at the same elementary school, but with a different teacher. In total, I had switched schools four times that academic year.

Jon was a stellar listener through all of this, never interrupting me or yelling at me to be quiet. In our moments alone, he encouraged me. I would rest my head on his shoulder, play with his long hair, and talk. He was the steady, the calm, the reasonable in my trembling, chaotic, unpredictable world.

Summer 1987

For a month or so, an oversized, Smurfalicious sanctuary was provided for us as the last of the live-in positions. Delta was annoyed by the strange blue characters dancing on the wallpaper of the cheery room, but I was still enough of a child to enjoy the imagery. Only a couple of years had passed since I’d dressed as a Smurf for Halloween, but it felt like a lifetime. It was here Jon and I really grew close. I was 11 that summer, that interlude between 5th and 6th grade, elementary and middle school, childhood and adolescence. The year was only half over, and already I was exhausted from the constant roaming, incessant fear of being caught sleeping in our car, not finding a safe, well-lit place to park for the night, not knowing when or what we would eat, how we would pay for gas, or where we would bathe. Being homeless in the 1980s was different than it is now. It would have been incomprehensible to set up a tent on the sidewalk. For me, the fear was of being caught, being taken from Delta, and sent to live with my dad—a virtual stranger. She’d painted such a dark picture of him that living with him in comfort was more fearsome than facing the cold, black nights in our car, which, by this time, was a ’70 or ’71 Plymouth Valiant, more spacious than the Pinto.

“Did I tell you that my friend Peaches is coming to stay the night this weekend?” I asked Jon, as close to giddy as I could feel during those times.

“You did. That’s going to be fun.” He smiled his slightly crooked, almost mischievous grin, and my heart floated away, aloft without the weight of the day’s hunger. Jon always knew how to redirect my thoughts from the heavy realities of the day to the lighter hopes that I clung to for grounding, for sanity.

August brought another move, this time into the home of a kind and discerning woman somehow named after a snake: Boa. Her older son was Tango’s best buddy. Puberty introduced itself to me while we stayed there, and perhaps it was just the shifting hormones, but this was when the stress of the year really caught up with me. My tolerance for Delta’s self-indulgent proclivities waned, my frustration waxed, and my emotions weltered. I knew we were on the precipice of a cliff, the ledge about to give way. It did, of course, when we were asked to leave again after only a month or so. Resources and opportunities depleted, we returned to the car. We bathed wherever we could: a restaurant restroom, a friend’s house, a bathroom in a food bank located in an old cottage that smelled like smoke because someone had launched a Molotov cocktail into a window. I trembled in that bathtub, terrified that whoever had “bombed” the house would do it again while we were there.

I couldn’t see Jon while we lived in our car and I missed him every day. I had no one to talk to or listen to me. The windows were bare. As a pre-teen in puberty, I was extremely uncomfortable with my body, and the lack of privacy when changing my clothes was hell. I feared waking up and seeing a frightening face in the black night, looking in at me. In September, I started middle school. None of my elementary friends were in any of my classes, and we didn’t have lunch together. No one talked to me. I was alone, falling, and I knew it.

October 1987

Fall brought another friend’s mom to our rescue. She took us into her home in yet another new town. I had no idea at the time, but this was to be my final school change. So much had transpired since selling Grandma’s little bungalow, and I was feeling lost, shuffled, and at my breaking point. As soon as we moved our meager belongings to this new place, Delta went into a weeks-long inpatient “pain clinic.” She was addicted to painkillers, and this was the prescription. While she was away, Tango came to stay with me. He’d just enlisted in the Navy, and he would be leaving soon.

While Delta was in rehab, I became extremely depressed. The mostly older kids on the bus were unkind to me. I tried to get Tango to drive me to school, but he wasn’t working, and we didn’t have gas money. The entire time Delta was away, I went to sleep at about 6:00 p.m., woke up around 2:00 a.m., and lay in bed creating scenarios in my head about rock stars rescuing me from my awful life. I only ate once a day at school. This worried Tango. He convinced me to at least eat some of the food that our hostess provided, lest I offend her.

Jon and I could talk there. I leaned on him, craving his embrace. His face and his smile were my refuge.

“Jon, I don’t want to keep doing this. I have a new friend and she’s so sweet. I’m tired of making friends and then moving away. I wish we could just stay in one place.”

He stroked my hair and met my eyes. “The hard times won’t last forever. You’ve got to believe.”

Delta returned, having learned to macramé, and soon took up the pills again. Foxtrot enlisted in the Army, Tango left for Navy boot camp in November, and I was making friends at my new school, settling into the rhythm of classes, excelling in all subjects, and arm wrestling the boys.

December 1987

Foxtrot had friends who managed a low-income apartment complex one town over: Alice and her husband Tittie. Aware of The Shituation and knowing that we needed a permanent solution, Tittie shenanigated us to the head of the two-year waiting list, and an apartment became available in mid-December. Tittie worked extra hard to get it ready for us, painting and installing new carpet after coming home from his day job.

On Christmas Eve, we were told to load up the car and come on over. Our new home was ready.

I didn’t know what to expect, just that it would be ours alone.

Tittie met us in the parking lot and led us in through the back door, past the bathroom and two bedrooms. Delta and I each carried a box. We followed him down a darkened hallway and emerged at the front entrance. She stopped short in front of me, and I bumped into her before squeezing past to see what gave her pause. Tittie went into the dining room, where a real Christmas tree stood, beautifully lit, and adorned with old-fashioned ornaments. Both of our friends had massive, mischievous grins on their faces. Against the far wall of the living room, Alice was sitting on a couch, holding her newborn daughter.

“Merry Christmas!” Tittie said, preening beside the tree.

Delta began crying while I remained confused. Alice explained, “This is your home. This is all yours. We went to each neighbor and told them about your situation and asked if they had any extras they could spare.” A couch, recliner, coffee table, two end tables, two lamps, a TV stand with an old TV on it, dishes in the cupboard, some pots and pans, a coffee pot, towels, and food—all gifts to us from strangers. There was even food in the refrigerator!

I cried. Delta continued to cry. Alice and Tittie and the baby cried. Our new neighbors had heard a story of a woman and a girl who had nothing to make a home with and had generously given us parts of themselves, of their homes. I couldn’t really process it, but I knew it was a rare gift.

We emptied the car that had housed us for a good portion of that year, visited with our friends, made coffee in our new-to-us coffee pot, and enjoyed the Christmas tree lights’ cheery glow. A couple of older gentlemen from the local food bank came by with a box of food for us, and later in the evening we were surprised by two police officers, one bearing a gift for me. A local policeman was friends with Tittie, had helped decorate our Christmas tree, and had put my name on the Giving Tree at the police department.

It was a lot to take in. Once alone in my very own room that night, with my new pink radio unwrapped, still unsure of how to feel or what was next, I unrolled my extra-large poster of Jon Bon Jovi and tacked it to the freshly painted walls, close to the floorboard, near my sleeping bag.

“We’re home now, Jon,” I told him, leaning against the wall so he could hold me. “Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas,” he replied, and wrapped me in a warm Christmas Eve embrace.

Delta’s welfare and food stamp benefits were restored. After a month or two at our new home, I asked Delta when we were moving again. The previous four years had conditioned me to expect a chaotic, nomadic existence. “We’re not!” she said sharply. We met neighbors, made friends, and got familiar with the small town. As I grew into a teenager, our situation didn’t improve beyond the roof over our heads. She was still a volatile narcissist who overused prescription painkillers. But that Christmas stayed with me, the kindness of strangers, of community, and it’s still difficult to tell the story without crying.

In the years that followed, I acquired hundreds of posters from Metal Edge magazine and covered my bedroom walls with them. I really thought they could see me and hear me. And I did get through it all. It was just last year that I learned this was a coping mechanism. But was it really maladaptive? Not compared to Delta’s vices.

I don’t talk to Jon anymore, but I always smile when I see him around.