In Pieces(57)

He had been gone only a day or two when Princess called to tell me that Jocko wanted to meet my son. Not quite eighteen, my sister had been working in a clothes store in Sherman Oaks, living sometimes with Baa, sometimes with whatever boyfriend she had, and sometimes with me. At one point we even tried to turn my garage into an apartment for her, but no amount of scrubbing could change the fact that it was a raw-walled concrete slab with a washer and dryer in one corner and an electric door that opened erratically and without provocation.

I hadn’t seen or talked to my stepfather in a very long time, not since he walked out of his marriage with my mother, and the thought of being in the same room with him again made my stomach flip over. But Princess sounded thrilled, excited to include the fact that Jocko wanted me to meet Autumn, the woman he had waltzed away with more than two years before, then married directly after divorcing my mother. And I mean directly—doubt the ink on the documents had dried.

I was not looking forward to any of it, and when I heard the putt-putt of Princess’s old Volkswagen bug (a hand-me-down from Steve, who had since purchased a motorcycle) I felt deeply relieved, knowing that we would have an hour together before Jocko’s expected arrival. As we paced around the living room, my sister recounted her time with the happy couple, having nothing but glowing words about her new stepmother and acting slightly giddy about the whole thing. So much so that when he finally swaggered through the front door, Princess was awash in pure, loving approval. With a Cheshire Cat grin, Jocko introduced me to his wife, while I held Peter tight on my hip like a child hugging her doll, comforted by his clinging.

In one little group, we slid from room to room while I gave them a quick house tour, Jocko walking with his arm slung around Princess’s neck the whole time. Then, awkwardly, he and Autumn (whose name is actually Patricia) sat down with a sigh on the green sofa, and suddenly I felt ill. Autumn looked so frantically eager, like a golden retriever waiting for her stick to be tossed. Pale blond and angular, with a greasy shine to her face, she sat on the edge of the cushion, inching closer to my adjacent chair, focusing on Peter, who would have nothing to do with her. The new Mrs. O’Mahoney oozed warmth, talking of how much she wanted me to meet my new brothers and sisters—her children. I clenched my jaw and nodded, adjusting Peter’s bent leg on my lap. After what seemed like a lifetime, Autumn asked Princess to show her the view from outside, and reached her arms out to Peter, wiggling her pearlized fingernails in his face as if that would seduce him to reach for her. Thank the good sweet Lord, he did not. So, empty-handed, she turned and walked out the glass door toward the backyard with my sister leading the way, leaving me with Jocko.

What on earth did this man and I have to say to each other? In reality, one hell of a lot, but that would never happen. Maybe it would if I could meet him today, with the sturdy legs of my history holding me up, but not when I was twenty-four with my baby son on my lap. Jocko chatted on, telling me how they were going to Hawaii to live on a bird sanctuary, and then, as casually as if he were requesting a glass of water, he asked if he could borrow $5,000. I thought, Crap, didn’t I play this scene before? But when I noticed that his hands were shaking, I quickly looked away, embarrassed for him, not wanting him to know that I had seen. His voice got louder as I left the room, guffawing at nothing while I sat down on my bed and filled out a check: Pay to the order of Jock O’Mahoney. When he and his new wife said their goodbyes, waving from their white station wagon as it pulled into the street, I held a drowsy Peter on the edge of my hip, closed the door to the entrance garden, then leaned into the bushes and vomited. I was pregnant again.


Steve and I stood in the kitchen the morning he was to appear for his draft physical, whispering to each other in the predawn darkness, making sure he had everything he needed. He was still exhausted and numb from his trip to North Dakota, still wondering if he should have found a way to tell his father that he was coming. The man had tried to act pleased, glad to finally meet his son, but during the few hours Steve was with him, he had felt an unmistakable “get lost” vibration. So that’s what he did. He came home to his own son, played with our little boy, and didn’t have much to say about the man who had turned his back on him again and forever. He couldn’t erase him from his mind, so he did the next best thing: He legally dropped the name Bloomfield and became Steven Craig. No more, no less.

Pregnant again as two-year-old Peter hangs on.





That morning I had packed him a few things to eat, including three of the brownies I’d made the night before. Just as Steve had requested, they were gooey, were filled with tiny bits of walnuts and a shitload of marijuana. He walked out the door with his birth certificate, the doctor’s letter, and his brown paper bag.

There were no cell phones in those days, meaning I couldn’t hear from him unless he went to a pay phone, and even though I never expected him to call, as the hours ticked by and morning turned into late afternoon, I desperately wanted to know what was happening. When he finally walked through the door, I was sitting on the living room floor next to a playpen stuffed with toys and a toddler who wanted out. Both Peter and I stood up as Steve—looking frighteningly pale, his eyes red and nearly swollen closed—sank slowly onto the foyer floor, put his head in his hands, and sobbed. Maybe it was the brownies he had eaten or the growing fear of being drafted or the bitter blow of his father’s cold shoulder, or maybe it was being sent to military school when he was four, or spending a year in an institution where there was no one to relate to—or maybe it was everything bubbling up all at once. But when he’d handed the psychologist’s letter to the sergeant at the desk, even before the examination began, Steve started to cry, violently. Eventually, someone had to walk him outside and sit with him on the front steps. Even then he couldn’t stop crying, sobbing and sobbing, unable to speak for hour after hour. By the end of the day, he was officially stamped 4-F and allowed to go home.