…Good Intentions of the Unintentionally Wicked…

Many times those who are closest to us possess the ability to become stumbling blocks and obstacles in our path toward discovering, strengthening & developing our individual talents/gifts/or abilities.   Close friends, family members, boyfriends/girlfriends, husbands/wives, co-workers, supervisors…the road to hell is paved with the good intentions of the unintentionally wicked…and so it is important to recognize the wolves in sheeps clothing whom are closer to us at times than an evil stranger ever could be.  Take my ex-husband for example.  Based upon his strong first impressions, initially he appeared to be a relatively intelligent, goal oriented, spiritual man from a traditional, well grounded, stable family unit with a solidly firm foundation.  Gil’s parents were proud, conservative, traditional, family oriented, dedicated parents who had been married for forty years when he first took me home to meet them twelve years ago.  At first I was very impressed with the family structure, and by all appearances, Gil had no other children and seemed to be a good choice to create a family unit with.  His parents owned their own home, had raised three sons, one daughter, and sheltered two grandchildren under their roof, and it was quite clear that they were a team dedicated to each other’s well being, and that their marriage was rock solid.  Gil went out of his way to impress upon me how devoted his parents were to the well being of their family no matter what, come hell or high water.  His two older brothers and younger sister were another story altogether; one that Gil seemed to enjoy telling quite often as a continuous example of how different their goals, philosophy and spiritual beliefs were from his own.  Some of the stories were so outrageous I wondered if he might  be exaggerating to make himself look better by comparison.  Gil always portrayed himself as an innocent young lamb who was pressured, influenced, directed and corrupted into a lifestyle of negativity, deceit and crime by his big brothers…like he had been coerced into being unintentionally corrupted by their habits and crimes, and the endless schemes of wickedness on their minds.  His two older brothers were so notoriously thugged out they were known throughout the neighborhood simply as the Jimenez Boys.  The hulking, predatory brothers were known for committing strong arm robberies, armed stickups, assaults, sexual asault, drug dealing, drug using, and prison extortion schemes used to squeeze money from other weaker, more fearful inmates for fun whenever they were on lockdown and doing hard time (which was quite often).  Neighborhood kids called the most thugged out of the two Magilla Gorilla…but always behind his back, never in front of his face.  He was so predatory that he robbed the corner bodega twice, and weeks later went back to hang out in front of the store and boldly pretended it had never happened.  According to Gil no one (including himself) was exempt from being targeted for a con or a scheme by Magilla.  He even stole prescribed medication from Gil right in front of his face, in an obvious, ludicrous, fumbling, bumbling Inspector Clouseau, Inspector Gadget kind of way…which Gil chose to ignore because his brother looked so damn foolish cupping a few pills in his hulking hand and hollering over his shoulder: “Huhhh?  What???  You called Me?” as a silly ass diversion to pass off the pills to his thirsty druggie girlfriend.  On one occasion he told Gil to take a ride with a guy who had some kind of ghetto beef brewing in the hood…and the car got shot up & Gil almost lost his life following his brother’s instructions, which didnt seem to bother Tony a bit.  After all, he had given Gil his first gun to commit armed robberies with and they sometimes committed crimes together; including one where Gil went to prison for having shot an apartment owner while they were burglarizing the place.  Tony would use anybody for anything if he could get away with it…and while locked up even managed to convince Gil to sneak drugs into the prison and pass it to him during visits, in exchange for gold jewelry that he extorted from weak, scared prisoners.  Even after being released from jail and while on parole and/or probation, he continued adding to his long list of criminal offenses, and was always being remanded back to prison, threatened with new charges or forced to enter (and booted out of) several drug programs.  Magilla had a heroin habit that needed constant feeding, so he promised their sister Lisa that he could provide her with an out of state ID for $300 dollars, but instead casually pocketed the money and spent his time stringing her along with a long trail of lies and excuses.  Of course she never recieved the ID, and he kept blaming it on an imaginary “friend” that he claimed he had given the money to…but then, their little sister was no prize, either.

Lisa was a study in contraditions:  Sometimes greedy and grating, other times generous and good natured, spoiled rotten as the only girl child and well known for never keeping her mouth shut, Lisa had three big brothers and two doting parents to watch her back & take her side growing up, and she quite uncharmingly took full advantage of it.  Worst of all, according to Gil, she was habitually chatty, sometimes argumentative, and enjoyed sipping ice cold Heinekins and talking shit, a very bad combination that brought out her obnoxious side after more than two beers, damn near every time.   Lisa always kept her eye on the prize…no matter whose prize it was.  When she wanted a man, she became pregnant by a neighborhood man-hoe who already had eight or nine kids by several different women.  When she tired of his deadbeat mess she then simply went back home to her family when the romance fizzled out and dumped herself and the child on her doting parents, while her groove continued on unabated.  Lisa always carried an air of spoiled entitlement as if she could never be satisfied or grateful for what she already had been blessed with in Life; and once told Gil that she already knew which of her parents belongings and jewelry she wanted to get for herself right after they died…a morbid, goulish, coldly selfish “Me, me, me” philosophy that still creeps me out to this day.  When she didnt want to listen to her parents good advice anymore Lisa moved out with her young daughter into the projects, settled in, got bored and began running her mouth with the in-front-of-the-building crowd, and started all kinds of silly arguments and fights with her ghetto neighbors.  No matter what, she always had 3 big brothers to call on to pull her ass out the fires she kept starting with her big blabbermouthing, so why not?   Eventually her apartment door was targeted by someone with a grudge, with keys jammed in her lock and a few doses of Krazy Glue too, necessitating several lock changes and locksmiths fees (for her parents, of course, not Lisa…she never missed an opportunity to use them to the limit).  The situation continued to simmer throughout the summer, until her taste for big mouth gossiping & Heinekins earned her a beatdown and a black eye in front of her own building; and after that embarrassment, Lisa was ready to move from the projects and start fresh…but trouble and drama followed right along in her footsteps, because of her spoiled, “better than” attitude, thoughtless behavior, and of course, her big mouth.  Lisa never could quite figure out which way was really up, nor when was the right time to shut the hell up…and when she took her poor judgment, bad attitude, and flapping lips across state lines for a walk on the wild side, it almost got her killed.  After moving back in with her weary parents following the project beatdown, Lisa wore out her welcome arguing nonstop with her elderly mom, over her careless, casual, “more-friend-than-parent” childraising of her gorgeous, blossoming young daughter, her stinginess with her own parents, the weekend warrior style partying, her careless attitude, and total lack of direction or focus in her life…but Lisa didn’t pay attention to a single word.  In fact, she had her eyes on another prize…but this one came with some extra special parting gifts, drama and plenty luggage/baggage/& issues to go along with.  It was the beginning of Lisa’s epic, inevitable downfall & tragic last stand…the start of a trip into NeverNever Land that few of her family knew of & no one involved could ever understand.  For reasons which remain known only to herself, Lisa foolishly, carelessly and impulsively allowed friendly, smiling faced predators & devils in disguise to overtake her body, her Life, good judgment and her mind.  It would prove to be a toxic mix of extremely warped judgment, poor impulse control and very bad decision making that would cost Lisa far more than she ever anticipated.  The first time I heard about her “transformation”, Gil confided that one day he’d visited his sister in her old projects apartment and found her getting wasted on Heinekins with two eagle-eyed, slick, sly, tough as nails, and not-at-all shy, aggressive lesbians.  “I could see that they were trying to turn her out and get her open…” he recalled.  “They were giggling & joking & laughing & playing & stuff…but they’re hands kept touching all over her, and they were no where near as juiced up as Lisa was…”.  In other words, they were predators of the lesbian persuasion…and Lisa was their prey, the next fresh meat on the menu.  In fact, Gil said they looked very much like they had done this before to other women…and Lisa’s drunken demeanor made it clear that she was quite willing to find out what they had hidden in their bag of sexual tricks.  Or, as my husband put it:  They got Lisa ready & willing & open, in no time at all.  Before long Lisa decided to take a walk, then a stroll, and then a running dive right on into the experimental side of the road & started going on an experimental dating spree with multiple women, eventually ending with a new relationship with a lesbian lover.  Unfortunately for Lisa, her new relationship coincided with her recieving a very large settlement check from SSI disability which was ten times the actual amount it should have been thanks to an accounting error, and so the check that should have been approx $1,500 dollars was sent out in the amount of $15,000!)  With that much ready cash in hand, Lisa’s better-than attitude knew no bounds and her new found lover became Lisa’s shadow, ready and willing to make sure she was being banged out and screwed sideways till her brains got scrambled so bad that she decided to move herself and her impressionable pre-teen daughter to Jersey to live with her lesbian/bisexual lover and the chick’s six children…despite numerous pleas by her own parents to re-think the possibly precarious situation, but they were wasting their breathe as usual.  What Lisa wanted, Lisa always went after full force…and now, Lisa wanted to be a lesbian.  Upon cashing her huge check, she bought a car for herself…and a car for her new girlfriend, too.  She then purchased an expensive new bed and a bunch of home furnishings to deck out her girlfriends house with, instead of her own.  Meanwhile, her daughters clothes, Timberland boots and jewelry were being stolen by her lovers bad assed kids right under Lisa’s nose…and her daughter was being forced to eat last after all the other children were fed first!  Still, blinded by her new lovetrap and a travel case full of sex toys, Lisa refused her parents plea to leave the child out of the messy situation and let her live at their stable, secure house.  It would prove to be yet another bad decision on Lisa’s part, because by then she was so stubborn she refused to listen to anyone except her vulturish lover, who was working overtime at using her for all she was worth.  Then one day the bottom fell out of her new fantasy, and took her eye right along with it.  All I know was that Gil called me thoroughly distraught, telling me that his sister was in the hospital and that someone had hit her in the face with a glass bottle and she might lose her eye.  Later we found out the gory details (though truth be told, I really didnt even want to know, by that time.  I knew it was going to be very bad…and it was).  Lisa had been hit in the face with a Snapple bottle by her new lovers ex-girlfriend, who started coming around to visit the ex-girlfriend and her six kids once Lisa’s money started running low.  Unhappy with the suddenly uncomfortable situation in Jersey, Lisa chose to argue for her new woman, and lost an eye in the process…and worst of all, her young daughter witnessed the entire horrifying event.  After leaving the hospital, Lisa finally got the hint that she had never really been wanted there in the first place (only her sudden windfall of cash money had been welcome..and that had begun to dry up, taking her new romance along with it).  To add insult to injury, her lover refused to return any of the property Lisa had spent her money on, including the car, brand new bed, and a washing machine, among other things.  It was a sad end to a sad tale, one I witnessed personally when Lisa and her young daughter came to visit for a Christmas holiday a year or two later, complete with her newly installed glass eye.  Everything seemed fine under the cicrumstances (other than the fact that her daughter now seemed to despise her wacky mother and talked to her with abosolutely no motherly respect) until after a few Heinekins too many, Lisa decided to spend the night and go back home to Brooklyn the next morning.  I was fine with that…until I was startled out of my bed in the middle of the night by blood curdling screams and shouts coming from my livingroom.  Jumping up and turning on the lights, Gil and I witnessed a terribly sad sight that I never wanted to see again:  Lisa was tossing and turning on the futon bed, striking out with her arms and fists in the grips of a horrifying nightmare; screaming and muttering and mumbling as she re-lived the day that her eye was taken out of her head, and thanks to the beers was completely unable to wake up and snap out of it.  When we saw that she was in no danger I tried to get back to sleep, but I felt scared, shaken…and an overload of pity for her yong daughter who would have been much better off staying at their grandparents house, for sure.  In the end she lost all respect for her mother, after witnessing so much disrespect, degradation, open sexuality and violence…and now tells her own mom to “mind your own business, I hate you, don’t ask me where I get my money from”, and other unprintable phrases.  Still, from the outside looking in, you could never tell so much sleazy drama has taken place within their family.  I guess they are so good at putting on a good public front because they work real hard at covering up, excusing away, and minimizing their family’s ugly truths, but that backyard is pure grime.  Still, like most people living a fantasy or a lie, the truth will almost always comes out in the end, over time.

What struck me most about the drama in my ex-husband’s family was how Gil always tried so hard to separate and distance himself from the hidden dysfunctions, crimes and insanity that lurked within his family tree…but it turned out that in some ways, he was the most dysfuntional of them all.  Over a long period of time I came to realize that Gil spoke so adamantly about his siblings habitual crimes and life errors in a vain attempt to throw up endless smoke and mirrors to cover up and distract from his own grime & slime.  Gil professed long and loud that he wanted to be a settled down father and family man, and that our family was the best and most important thing that ever happened in his life, but his actions surely did not match up to his words…in fact, his priorities proved to be just the opposite.  Just like his brothers and sister before him, when you stripped away the shiny varnish and fancy clothes, Gil’s top priority was to take care of himself, his wants, and his needs, with total disregard to all others involved…and in the end that is exactly what he did.  All the negativity I dealt with during our marriage has been well documented in my epic 800 page manuscript, Sliding Down Sugar Hill, so I wont detail all that here, instead I prefer to highlight the last two years of manic-depressive insanity I was forced to bear witness to in bits and pieces since our final separation two years ago, on Wedensday July 22nd, 2009 at about 6:15am.  Just the fact that I can still clearly remember the day/date & time tells you that he took me on a hell of a rollercoaster ride…one which I was more than happy to put the brakes on and get the hell off, before I fell off.  When Gil left that morning to return to his parents house in Brooklyn, I already knew something was Up, because his lazy ass never rose before 11 am…and he was practically tiptoeing around my apartment, trying hard not to wake me up.  Clearly, he wanted to leave unnoticed and undisturbed…and though my gut told me that he was being sneaky again, I had no idea just how far his unstable mind would go.  However, it didnt take long for me to find out.  Soon enough I knew for certain that my once beloved husband was very much no longer in my corner…because he decided to leave myself and the kids high and dry, and abandoned our family unit without a single thought for our safety and well-being, for the next four and a half months!  Calls to his phones and answering machine messages went unanswered and ignored, and it was only by my family grapevine I came to know that he had checked himself into a rehab program and eventually set himself up in a projects apartment in Red Hook, Brooklyn…quite near to his real family.  It was a stunningly irresponsible, selfish, careless, carefree slap in the face that my children have never quite recovered from, and one that stretched my sanity, patience, health, and parental abiltities to the absolute limit.  At times I felt that I was on the verge of reaching my breaking point, and only thoughts of my children and how much they needed me kept my sanity intact.  When he showed up nearly five months later, he was cold, distant, unrepentant, distracted, short tempered, rude & dismissive…and looked thin & shabby & worn out, like he was using drugs again (which he later admitted to, but only after I nagged the damn truth out of his lying ass mouth).  Though I tried several times to set up a fair visitation schedule and to secure a commitment for reasonable child support( asking only for a $100 dollars per month for two children), Gil wasnt interested in mainitaining any responsibilities for our children, or commitments to anyone except himself.  After disappearing from their lives and abandoning them for five months (when our daughter was three at the time, our young son was eighteen months old), he then spent the next two years dropping in and out of the picture whenever he felt like it.  At times he would ignore all calls when he didnt show up, and even took his phone off the hook several times to remain completely unreachable.  The excuses he gave for why he wasn’t consistent and responsible in maintaining his parental commitments ranged from the ludicrous (“I didnt get a good nights sleep”, or “The trains are not running right so I cant make it there”) to the laughable (“I don’t have cable tv or cartoon dvd’s for the kids to watch”, or “I sprained my ankle on my way uptown so I turned my phone off & went to the hospital”), to the utterly insane (and my personal favorite Gil excuse of all time: “I cant come to pick up the kids, I’m bleeding from my private parts!”)…but to hear him tell it, I was the one “being difficult”, by  objecting to his careless parenting and lack of reliability.  Many times I wondered if his mental illness was increasing and worsening with age, because he certainly didnt seem to be gathering up any nuggets of wisdom or parental guidance along the way.  Approaching 50 years old in January 2012, this fool has decided to enter a fourth drug program in two years (Yes, I said fourth in two years…none of which he has ever completed, graduated from or earned a single parenting skills or anger management certificate from, btw) but then refused outright my offer to set up his child visitation through his program counsellor, since I have no energy left to continue issuing pleas that he transform himself into a reliable, responsible, consistent father who does not spend his time telling himself, his children and the world grandiose fantasies and lies, none of which he ever follows through on.  Who has the time, energy or inclination for that exhausting shit?  Tired of the endless drama, emotional upsets, family disruptions, threats, arguments and physical attacks he waged against me over his lack of consistent parenting (and the toll it was taking on my already shaky health), I gave up and blocked his phone number and initiated divorce proceedings.  Why keep trying to turn an uncooperative, thoughtless donkey into a focused, winning racehorse?  Heck, even a donkey is more reliable and dependable than Gil was, so why continue suffering through his angry attitude, careless parenting, selfish behavior, self centeredness, psych problems, violence, threats and family disruptive fits when clearly nothing was improving there?  Better to spend my time and energy creating a safe, happy, stable home environment for our children and myself, and trying to improve on my own problems.  After our son nearly got hurt very badly in his new apartment, after falling on a glass coffee table and shattering it while Gil was standing right there in the same room, that terrifying scare galvanized me into taking even more responsibilty for my children onto my already overloaded shoulders, because by then their dad was bordering on incompetent.  Gil made it very clear that he is not interested in being a responsible parent anymore, and after a long mental battle I have quit raking myself over the coals for choosing such a poor specimen to father my children.  If I was fooled by the shiny surface of his family tree and Gils tall tales and legends about his legendary dedication & commitment to family…then So Be It.  I cant change that ancient history any more than I can change Gil and his slow slide into mental instability.  Instead, I spend my time taking full time care of our young children (one of whom is developmentally delayed with mild autism), chronicling my life history, attempting to improve my health, and trying to be better at healing & learning from past hurts in life.  So I try to find ways to share my life experience and hard earned wisdom with the next generation before my time is Up & I must Go…but one thing I am sure of is that I Dont Have to Forget What Happened, In Order To Forgive What Happened.  I Have to be Willing to Heal, and Willing To Not Wake Up With Corrosive, Self-Destructive Anger Churning Inside Daily…But The Ugly, Secret Truths Of the Matter I Do Not Ever Have To Hide.  Better to Let It All Out In The Open, Than To Keep It Locked Away & Hidden Inside.  I’m not trying to make it all sound easy, because sometimes it really isn’t and there are days when I have made little or no progress on my road to Redemption…but it also isn’t as exhausting and physically draining and as toxic as holding it all in is, or as Dressing up the outside to cover up the Inside can be.  Knowing the hidden truths of the good intentions of the unintentionally wicked can surely set You Free.  I was once trapped in a toxic, abusive marriage to a selfish madman, and now I am as happy as can be…

Song of the Day…”Me, Myself, & I” & “Halo” by Beyonce