Chapter 7 - Why I Shattered the Steel Ceiling & How I Did It

To me, it seemed like a very long dark lonely period of my life had finally ended. At least I was hoping it had.  It had been eighteen years since grandpa started hurting me and fifteen years since I told mom about what he was doing to me.  Her denial and cycles of rage toward me, and my total fixation on getting drunk as much as possible had driven both of us out of our minds. 

It was almost seven years since my world completely imploded when Lori died. The sun had set in the east for me when they were killed, but it seemed to rise in its proper place on the day I got out of Rockwell. 

I knew that I was in for the fight of my life because I had absolutely no idea about how to get along on the outside without getting drunk to kill the pain, but I was either going to find out how to live out there or I was going to make sure I didn’t go back to Rockwell!

I had a hard time choking down breakfast. Most of the women were wishing me success, but there were a couple that I wanted to jump up and knock off their chairs.  I knew they were trying to get me to do something stupid so I just smiled at them.

Breakfast was finally over so I could go meet my boss in the next building and get dressed to leave. I was nervous because I was taking out some rolled up letters to be mailed for a woman. 

I walked out of the cottage, went to the store room where I changed clothes. My boss and I walked to the office.  I signed papers stating that I had completed my seven year sentence.  I was released from the custody of the Iowa Department of Corrections on May 22, 1969. 

In my mind, since I had gone to town to get my driver’s license a couple of days before, dad would drive my convertible, with the top down, to pick me up. I would drive out to freedom waving goodbye to everybody, but that isn’t what happened.  He drove his car to pick me up. 

Everything was finally done.  I was free to go.  The warden told me as I started through the door, “You’ll be back in a year!”

I turned around and looked deep in her eyes, “Over my dead body!!” 

I had made up my mind that I would kill myself before I did one more day locked up. I am pretty sure she knew what I meant because she looked sad all of a sudden and nodded.

I got in the car with my family.  Dad drove out the tree lined driveway to the road. 

All of a sudden one of the panic attacks that I had suffered with since childhood hit me. Every ounce of joy was crushed.  I sat there with my gut in agony and my brain short circuiting.  I couldn’t let them know what was going on or they would take me directly to a ‘nut ward’.

Most of the conversation on the way to the farm was pretty much white noise to me except dad told me that he would pull my car out of the machine shed when we got home so I could drive it, “The insurance is paid for a year.”

“Why do you have to pull it out?  Doesn’t the motor run?”

“Yeah, but it’s real muddy and I don’t wancha ta git it stuck tryin’ ta git it to the driveway.”

“Oh, okay.”

That helped the panic attack ease some, but stopping to use the restroom so I could get those damned letters out helped even more. 

I was totally overwhelmed as I watched the miles go by. Everything was just as surreal as the trip to Rockwell had been six years before, but in another way it felt no different than when I was on work release going to and from Fort Dodge or riding to and from the drapery jobs.  I kept trying to convince myself that I was actually free. 

Why don’t I feel any different? Isn’t it supposed to feel different?

The first thing I did when we got to the farm was take off my shoes and walk barefoot in the grass. My family was used to me doing crazy things so nobody even asked why I was doing it.  I was glad.  How would I explain powerlessness?  How could I make them understand how it felt to not be allowed to feel grass or the ground on my bare feet for all of those years?  That is a horrible thing to do to a farmer’s kid.  We need to stay grounded. 

I have made sure that I walked barefoot in the grass every May 22nd for forty seven years as a celebration of my freedom, but that first time was my first deliberate act of defiance when it came to the steel ceiling.  There would be many more.

Oh man, was that convertible beautiful!  It was red with a white top; a 1965 Pontiac Catalina convertible with red vinyl seats.  There was a red vinyl cover to snap over the top when it was down too.  I had never touched it except in my dreams, but now I had tears in my eyes watching dad pull it through the mud to the driveway with the tractor. 

As soon as it was on the crushed rock driveway he unhooked it from the tractor and said, “Well?” and handed me the keys.

My hand was shaking as I took the keys and walked slowly toward it.  I remembered all of the employee’s personal cars I had washed and cleaned out to earn money on my canteen card through the years.  I would pretend their cars were mine while I messaged them clean, but this car had their cars beat by miles!

I opened the door, sat down in the driver’s seat, put the key in the ignition and turned it. The motor gave me a thrill that I can still feel today.  There was so much power, and it was all mine!

I knew better than to leave because I would go straight to the bar and wouldn’t come back for my sister’s graduation.  I was determined to be there that night and at her wedding the next night. 

I parked the car off of the driveway in the shade of the trees, turned off the key, tenderly caressed the steering wheel, opened the door, got out and closed it gently.

“You stay right here. I’ll be back!!”

As soon as I got my stuff in the house my sister told me that she thought it would be nice for me to loan them my car for their honeymoon. 

“No.”

She didn’t let up and tried numerous ploys.  I knew they were having a church wedding and remembered when our brother had a church wedding.  His friends put limburger cheese on his motor and the car stunk for weeks.  Somebody had also used shaving cream or something on the sides that damaged the paint.  I was not going to deal with that stuff.

“What am I supposed to drive?”

“You can drive our car.”

“So can you.”

I have no memory of what was said after that, but I finally convinced her that her games were not working.  I was not giving in. She pouted for a while, but when that didn’t work either, she got mad, “You need to be here tomorrow morning to help me get ready for my wedding, and don’t you be drunk either!”

Yup! I needed that!  Thanks!!!

I knew she had been getting her way since the accident because she told me, “Dad thinks I still believe in Santa. That way I get more presents.” 

Damnit! I wish I would have thought of that!!

She pretty much had everything ready for her graduation party that evening, but I helped with a couple of things.  I told dad in private that some of the women I knew were throwing me a coming home party in Des Moines after I went to her graduation party. 

He told me, “You need to come home after the ceremony and help with her party. I’ll let you know when it’s okay for you to go.”

“Okay.”

That evening I got dressed in my yellow Nauru collar suit with a fairly short skirt (I had great legs back then.) black turtle neck top, black hose and heels.  I rode to the graduation ceremony with dad so I was not tempted to leave. 

I was very proud of my sister as she walked across the stage to receive her diploma. She had been through so much.  I remembered what I felt like when I thought she might die.  I was not used to my eyes leaking from joy, but that is what they were doing.

I was so glad that dad had kept his promises that day in the chapel while she was in surgery.

It must have worked. She’s walking and living a great life now. I sure didn’t keep my promises.

She had told me, when they visited me in Cherokee, that nobody ever told her that she was not supposed to be able to walk so she fell down a lot, “But finally I got it figured out.”

It had to be hard for her since her hip was fused and her thigh bone had screws in it from her injuries.  What a brave person she is! I’m glad she didn’t need me to help her because I was useless! The only thing I ever did for her was keep grandpa from hurting her.

We went back to the farm after the ceremony was over. A lot of people came to her party.  She got lots of gifts, which always made her happy, but it was the unbridled love she got from everyone that I envied the most. 

I wonder what that feels like.

I kept an eye on dad to see when he would give the signal that I could leave. I realized he was keeping an eye on me to make sure I didn’t. 

The festivities started to wind down and dad finally gave me the okay signal. I told her how proud I was of her.  “Some women are having a home coming party for me in Des Moines.”

“You be here tomorrow morning! I need you to help me!!!”

“Okay.”

I walked out of the house and got into that beautiful convertible. I felt like a colt someone had just let out of the barn in spring, but instead of running and kicking up my heels through the pasture, rolling around in the new grass and doing it all again, over and over and over, I was going to show restraint and not drink very much until after her wedding the next night.

It was a little chilly with the top down, but that mattered little to me because I was going to drive with the stars as my ceiling instead of the nicotine stained concrete I had looked at for years.

I started that big bitch and felt the power again. I turned on the heater and turned the radio up so I could feel the base.  I backed it up, turned it toward the road and put it in drive. 

So many times in the last six plus years I had dreamed about this moment, but now this beautiful car was actually moving with me behind the wheel. I realized that I could never have imagined the elation I was feeling because I had never felt that good before.

Did I consider how much it must have pissed off my siblings that dad bought that car for me when they both had been doing all the right things and I had been a fuck-up all my life. No, I didn’t even wonder why he did it.  That was what he had always done for all of us.  Money was the way he showed his love.

I took it easy the eleven miles to Adel. It had been years since I had driven a car.  I was so proud of myself for not drinking all day, but now it was time for me to get a beer in me for the trip to Des Moines. 

I stopped at a bar in Adel. I walked in and sat in a booth with my back to the front wall so I could see everything.  I ordered a beer and was just starting to fondle it when he, Lori’s father, came to the booth. 

He cooed his name and, “What’s yours?”

I was glad that mom had trained me to not show any emotions because it came in handy in those nut wards, jails, prison and now. The more shocked I was the more deadpan I became. 

You didn’t care at all about Lori or me did you? She’s in the cold ground and you never even met her.  Hell, you’ve never asked where she’s buried.  All you wanted to do was fuck me and here you are tryin’ again  …  and actin’ like you don’t know who I am? We rode the school bus together for years you asshole!!  Okay buddy, you wanta play games?  We can do that!!!

“I’m going to a party in Des Moines.  You wanta go?  We can stop at bars on the way if you wanta pay for the beer.”

“Sure, but I’ve gotta be back so I can go to work in the morning or they’ll fire me.”

“No problem.” You just got fired mother fucker!!!

We stopped at a bar in Waukee and somewhere in the suburbs. I was not quite sure what I was going to do.  He needed to suffer at least some for not caring at all about Lori, but I didn’t want to do any more time either. 

I decided to just ditch him. It was late enough that he was going to have a hard time getting back to Adel in time to go to work.  Besides, I was getting tired. 

“I’m really hungry. Will you go into City Drug and buy me a hamburger?  I’ll drive around the block until you come out.”

“Sure.”

He got out of the car and walked into the building. I drove off to the party. 

We met again a few years later in a different bar in Adel. He was still pissed about me dumping him and I told him that he was lucky that is all I did after getting me pregnant and not even asking about our daughter. 

“She was killed with my mother in a car accident. Then you tried to fuck me again the night I ditched him.”

That pretty much took the wind out of his sails. He said that he didn’t know we had a daughter.  I told him that I had run dad’s car into a tree in the Adel Park trying to kill myself the night I told him about the pregnancy. 

“You told me that you were married that night and walked away.”

He asked about Lori. I told him that she was buried next to mom in Grimes.  I heard that he was killed in a car accident a few years later, but he had gotten sober by that time. 

A woman hugged me after an AA meeting in Adel a few years after that. While we were hugging she whispered, “I was his wife.”

Neither of us let go. I said, “I’m glad he was sober when he died.”

We let go, stepped back, smiled sadly at each other and nodded.

Almost everyone was gone by the time I got to the party. I was exhausted from getting out of Rockwell and all of the emotions I had gone through in a few short hours.  I wanted to make sure I got back to the farm on time so I only drank a partial beer before I went to sleep. 

I made it back to the farm when I was supposed to be there. I was just a little bit hung over.  My sister gave me my assignments and I obediently did what I was told.  This was her day and I was not going to ruin it, except I had to tell her a couple more times that I absolutely was not going to let them use my car no matter how guilty she tried to make me feel. 

Actually, I was very proud of all the ways she came at me to get her way, but I had just spent years with lots of women who had honed their manipulation skills. She was not going to come up with something that had not already been tried on me.

I wore a very nice two piece light green dress to the wedding. The church was beautiful that evening.  As I watched my sister walk down the aisle on dad’s arm I understood for the first time why people cry at weddings.  She was gorgeous in her white gown.  All I could think of was everything she had been through and how courageous she had been to get to this moment. 

Actually, proud of her does not even touch what I felt, but I had no idea, at the time, what those feelings were. Rage was my norm.  I didn’t know what to do with the feelings either, so I just did what I had been taught to do and shoved them down.

The reception was wonderful, but few people talked to me. I am pretty sure those Methodists didn’t know what to say.  ‘What have you been up to?’ would not have been appropriate since everybody knew that I had been in prison for years.

Pictures were taken. My sister asked if I would stand in for mom in the pictures.  I told her that I would.  I couldn’t understand how I could ever be considered anything like mom, but if that is what she wanted, I would do it.

Recently my sister and I have been sharing some of our memories. I told her how shocked I was that she wanted me to stand in for mom in her wedding pictures.  “I felt so inadequate.”

She told me, “You were all I had!”

Later that evening, as I thought about what she said, I started crying for her. If I was all she had, she was in trouble.  I had always been totally useless to her except for keeping grandpa away from her.  I really wish I could have been the sister she needed, wanted and deserved.  We do not get ‘do-overs’, but hopefully I can be that kind of sister now.

Dad knew that I wanted to get going after the wedding reception, but he had told me to wait until he gave me the sign. He understood that he probably would not see me for awhile because I was going to be drunk most of the time. 

Actually, that is the reason he paid for the car insurance. That way he would have plenty of money to bury me.  There was very little insurance money when mom had her car accident.  He didn’t want to go through that again.  And to be honest with you, neither of us expected me to live through the next year.

Dad finally gave me the nod. I congratulated my sister and her husband.  I told them I was leaving.  I got in my car and drove toward Des Moines.  I drove straight through Adel because I was pretty sure Lori’s father was looking for me.

Everything is blurry for awhile after that. I kept my clothes at the farm.  I drank, drugged and screwed most of the east side of Des Moines, sometimes for money. 

I danced my ass off and did my best to stay in that sweet spot where I felt nothing except having fun, but not so far gone that I would attack others for just looking at me wrong. Sometimes that worked.

Many times on the thirty miles to the farm from Des Moines, at 3-4:00 a.m., the trees by the farm houses next to the highway would slide out in front of my car. My mind told me that they couldn’t do that, but I slowed down anyway.  I would just about get to the tree, and sometimes start through it before it slowly glided back into the yard.  I knew I was doing too much of something, but felt more curiosity than fear.

Some mornings I woke up parked on the side of a gravel road. Kids yelled out the window at me as the school bus passed.  I seemed to park the same place a couple of miles from the farm and go to sleep.  It was just easier to go into the house after dad went to work so I didn’t have to face him.  I knew that he was disappointed in me, probably almost as disgusted as I was at me.

Dad and I had an understanding. I told him several times, “If you don’t want to know, don’t ask because I’m not going to lie to you.  I’ll tell you the brutal truth.”

Years after I sobered up he said, “There’s something I’ve never been able to figure out. I knew you were still fillin’ your car with gas after I put the padlock on the tank, but I didn’t know how you were doin’ it.  Were you climbin’ up on top of it and siphoning it out?”

“No, I used your big screw driver to pop the lock and then I put the padlock back on the tank after I filled the car.”

“I’ll be damned!”

A short time after I got out of Rockwell I was putting gas in my car at a station in Dallas Center.  My sister and brother-in-law were there.  The motor had been knocking pretty bad, probably because I had not put any oil in it. 

Emotionally I was at that point. I knew I was going to put myself back into Rockwell.  I was so out of control.  I knew I couldn’t stop living in the hell every alcoholic and addict understands, but I was not willing to be locked up for the rest of my life either.

I asked my brother-in-law “Is the insurance paid?”

“I guess.”

I got in the car, put it in gear and spun out onto the highway. The motor was really knocking as I gained speed.  The last time I looked at the speedometer it was a little over one hundred miles an hour.  I heard the bang and felt the motor lock up.  I spun the wheel as far as I could so the car would roll over.  I relaxed and was ready to die. 

It was like being on the tilta-whirl. It felt like I spun and spun, and then the car was sliding backwards in a straight line next to a fence and stopped. 

Shit!!! I can’t even kill myself right!!!

All of a sudden my sister was there crying. I tried to get her to leave so she wouldn’t get into trouble.  She tells 'me that she yelled, “YOU SONOFABITCH!!!”, but I heard “FUCK YOU!!!” and then she walked away.

Someone told me that I spun into one ditch, back across the highway in front of a truck and into the ditch where I stopped. Did I consider how traumatic that was for my sister to watch?  It never crossed my mind that she would care one way or the other.

Dad had my car towed to Adel and had a short block put in it so I would have transportation, “If you get a job.”

“Okay”

He asked if I wanted to go see his father.

Apparently it is important to you that I visit the pedophile or you wouldn’t be asking me.  “I will for you.”

He took me to the nursing home north of the Lutheran Hospital in Des Moines.  As we were walking into the building he told me, “He may not know you.  Sometimes he does and sometimes he don’t.”

I took a deep breath and steeled myself as we walked. I had not seen my grandfather since I was on parole, about three years before this.  To tell you the truth, it would not have bothered me one bit to never have seen him again.  The only reason I was doing this is because mom had trained me that I was not to hurt dad, and I was to show respect for my elders no matter how much I hated them. 

Grandma sat silently by his bed when we walked into the room. She barely acknowledged my presence.  I walked to the side of grandpa’s bed.  I was shocked because he had been a six foot tall robust German the last time I saw him.  Now he was a wilted shadow of himself.  His eyes were closed. 

I picked up his hand, “Grandpa?”

He opened his eyes and immediately started crying.

“Do you know who I am?”

He nodded and slurred my name. His eyes begged me for forgiveness.  The longer I looked at them the more they begged and the harder he cried. 

I didn’t know what to do. Mom had trained me to never tell anybody what he did to me.  Now he was begging me to forgive all the years of pain and intimidation.  I could not scream at him in front of dad. 

“It’ll hurt daddy” … …  If I don’t forgive him, he’ll go to hell.

I was finally able to nod at him and pat his hand once, “It’s okay”.

I laid his hand on the bed, turned and walked out of the room. I went to the car and lit a cigarette.  I started crying.  Why didn’t I yell and scream at him? Why does he get to hurt me and then go to heaven when I’m going to hell for praying that mom would die? 

Dad came out later. We didn’t discuss grandpa.  He let me use his Barracuda while my car was being fixed. 

Grandpa died a short time later. I am pretty sure he was just holding on until I showed up and told him that he was forgiven.

Dad took my empty beer cans off of the back seat floor before he drove us to the funeral. At this point, I was unaware that there was such a thing as visitation for people who had died.  I understand now why my family didn’t want to deal with me at visitations, but I hope no one else is treated that cruelly by their family. 

Everyone in the family should be allowed the privacy for coming to terms with the initial shock of seeing a person in a casket for the first time. Grandpa was different for me than Lori because this time I wanted to spit in his face.

Grandpa had been a farmer and carpenter. The preacher talked about how many great things he had done for the community and the church, including putting a new roof on the building.  He said a lot of other really nice things about him.  I sat there watching everyone cry.  I still felt nothing but contempt. 

I wonder what they’d do if I got up and told the rest of the story. …  No, I can’t do that!  It would hurt dad!  They wouldn’t believe me anyway!  …  Let ’em think whatever they want.  I know the truth!  …  And so did he!!!

I got my convertible back. I’m not really sure which bar I found the guy that had used me as a punching bag while I was on parole, but somehow we got back together…probably good drugs.  We moved to Omaha and dad paid my rent for the first month, but a couple of nights later I took the asshole’s clothes to the bar where I caught him with another woman.  After the shotgun incident, he knew better than to mess with me.

Three doctors were giving me a prescription every month for Dexedrine to lose weight. I was not sharing with anyone.  It was July 20, 1969 when we landed on the moon. I put the top down and parked in the country where there were no street lights. 

I got in the back seat with a six pack of beer, pushed the back of the passenger seat forward and put my feet on it. I sat there drinking the beer and looking at the moon while the men walked on it.  I suppose it was all of the drugs, but I was convinced that I could see them walking and jumping around. 

I was hustling the nicer bars on the west side of Omaha for a while and started drinking some kind of almost champagne, but most of the idiots thought I was going to give it away.  I had to start frequenting the bars in downtown Omaha before I found the tricks that understood to get out their money.  I went back to drinking beer.

I met a gorgeous Mexican-American man who took my breath away. We played pool and talked a lot after I had turned enough tricks in other bars to pay my expenses for that day.  In time we became a couple, or was he my pimp, maybe a friend with benefits? 

I would wake up and he would be stalking the bedroom with his weapon. I kept real still.  I found out that he was having flashbacks from being caught behind enemy lines in Viet Nam. 

Did that information scare me? Make me go running away?  Nope, I just took enough pills and drank enough beer that it didn’t register he was holding a real gun.

We ended up working for the owner of a bar. I took pills and worked the day shift and he worked the night shift.  I took more pills and hustled other bars at night.

I tried to call dad one evening, but the operator told me that his phone was disconnected. I, being the good drunk I was, called her everything but a child of God, “I’ll have you know my father pays his bills!  You need to get me through to him!”

CLICK, she hung up on me. Okay maybe I didn’t use those exact words.

A couple of days later, that gorgeous man, who ended up being husband #2, handed me a letter from dad. I started crying as I read it. 

He asked, “What’s the matter?”

“Dad’s dead!” I sobbed.

“He can’t be! He wrote the letter!!”

He was right, but dad wrote about how he had gotten up in the morning, flushed the toilet and the house blew up with him in it (January 8, 1970). That was the night I tried to call him.

The explosion had blown both porches off the house and the kitchen wall was blown on top of his work car, with all of his tools. Everything had burned to the ground. 

He wrote that he was standing in the bathroom doorway waiting to make sure the water pump started. The actual blast, when the pump sparked and ignited the gas, went past him and down the hall.  The bathroom window was shattered as the porch was blown off.  He got a couple small glass shards in his neck from the window being blown toward him. 

I asked him later if the whole house was on fire immediately. “No, only the kitchen was on fire when I ran across the hall and grabbed my coats.  I tripped on my bowling bag so I grabbed it too.  Then I climbed out the bedroom window and back in the living room window to get my shoes.  I backed my other car out of the garage and parked next to the barn.  Everything burned.  I’m mad that I didn’t grab mom’s graduation picture when I went through the bedroom.”

Mom’s best friend told me a few years later, “That morning was way below zero.” She said the neighbor north of dad called her husband because dad’s house had just exploded and he didn’t want to go there by himself.  She said dad was sitting in his car by the barn when they got there.

Now, how could that happen? Well, let me explain.  You see the Northern Natural Gas Company (NNGC) decided in 1953 that there were several porous underground rock domes, one on top of the other, full of water that would keep natural gas under pressure so they could get the gas back out.  Dad’s farm was smack on the top of them. 

(NNGC) offered money to the school system, natural gas for the residents that lived over the storage formations and damages for crops. My parents refused the natural gas. 

Their oil rigs illuminated the country side every night. They trenched through the fields to lay their pipe lines and left the top soil on the bottom when they shoved the dirt back in.  We could stand beside a field and see exactly where the lines were because the crops were so much shorter. 

Dad’s farm had crushed rock roads on the south side and west end with numerous pumps on the eighty acres. The NNGC employees left the gates open so livestock was always getting on to the road.  Water escaped the underground domes and came out of the ground like three Old Faithfuls for days in the middle of the field southeast of our house.

Before all of this started our well water was cold and clear. Dad had drilled it to 365 feet after my parents bought the farm.  The guys on the drill rigs came to our house to fill their drinking water containers in the beginning, but drill mud got into the water aqueduct and made it unsafe to drink without boiling. 

Mom and dad took NNGC to court for damages, but lost their case. It broke mom’s heart that none of the neighbors would join them in a class action suit. 

Anyway, let’s get back to why dad’s house exploded. Mom was scared of storms and made us go to the cellar, which was a small room under the kitchen with a block floor that filled with water when it rained.  Dad put in drainage tile and connected it to the field tile so the water would drain away. 

One of NNGC’s pumps did not work right the night before dad’s house exploded. Its valve stuck open and leaked natural gas all night into the field tile, which filled dad’s cellar with natural gas.  He got up in the morning and flushed the stool.  The water pump sparked when it started and ignited the natural gas.

Dad’s habit of standing in the bathroom doorway to make sure the water pump started had saved his life. If he would have walked into the kitchen instead of staying in that doorway, he would have been right on top of the explosion.  I’m pretty sure I know who dad’s guardian angel was.  Mom absolutely adored him! 

There are several things that still piss me off about this disaster. First, dad only got $20,000 from the insurance company for the house and contents.  And this one still makes me crazy every time I think about it.  My sister-in-law told me, “It’s too bad dad wasn’t killed because I’d be a millionaire now.”

I have tried to come up with something to say about the latter, but there just plain is no reasonable excuse for someone saying that to me.

I drove from Omaha to the farm after I got dad’s letter.  Our farm buildings sat in a slight recess between two knolls.  I thought I had myself ready to see no house when I topped the south knoll, but the emptiness where the house had been all of my life was still a shock.  There was nothing left except the concrete back steps and a hole full of debris where the cellar had been. 

I sat down on the steps and cried. Dad’s dog came from the chicken house and got up on my lap.  We sat there together for a long time after my tears stopped.  I just petted her and she snuggled her nose under my arm.  I didn’t even notice how cold it was until I got back into the car and turned the heater on full blast.

Dad was staying in a motel in Adel right after the explosion. He bought two houses north of Adel with a garage between them.  He lived in one and my sister and her husband moved into the other one.  My brother and his family took care of the farming for a while and we all started getting used to our new normal.

The future #2’s nephews came to visit us in Omaha.  We stayed in Chicago, his hometown, when we took them back to their parents.  I worked as a waitress during the day and hustled the bars at night.  I’m not exactly sure what he did. 

The hotel was on Hallstead Street across from the restaurant where I worked.  It was above a day-labor office so I had to be at work early.  The men wanted breakfast before people started showing up to hire them for the day.

Several times the restaurant door was locked when I went to work. I had to go to the corner and get the ‘bookie’ that sold newspapers to unlock the door so the dishwasher could be the short-order cook for that day.  Quite a few of the cooks took off with the money.

Other women’s eyes bothered me because they looked dead from drinking for so many years. I remember thinking, I’m sure glad I’m not that bad. Today I know why they bothered me.  I knew I was just as bad as they were. 

One night I came back to the room. There was a bullet hole in the mattress.  “What happened?”

He nonchalantly told me, “I was holding it under my left arm. I was going to shoot you between the eyes when you walked through the door, but I must have gone to sleep.  It woke me up when it went off.”

“Oh, can we get some sleep now?”

“Yeah”

Why wouldn’t I want to stay with a man that admits he was going to shoot me between the eyes? And of course I wanted to marry him!

We moved to Iowa, got married and lived in Grimes.  He worked at the corn factory and I stopped turning tricks.  His six year old daughter came to live with us.  My whole job was to take care of her. 

Her mom let her live with us because his daughter had just gotten out of the hospital for malnutrition, lice and there was something else, but I can’t remember what it was. It didn’t take us long to get her back up to par. 

One evening I was doing dishes. She walked to me and said with pride, “Look Bonnie (rubbing her tummy) my tummy looks like yours now!” (My abdomen has always been well rounded!)

“Yeah, and you’re feeling a lot better aren’t you?”

She kept smiling and nodded as she went back to the table to play.

#2 gave me hell one day for taking her to the neighborhood bar so I stopped that immediately. Everything went great for a few months until her mother wanted us to bring her back to Chicago because she was losing the child support for her.

I had allowed myself to really bond with his daughter. I was not drinking very much and not taking pills.  I got to feel what it might have been like if mom would have allowed me to be Lori’s mother. 

My soul had a new fracture as I packed the pretty clothes and toys we bought her. I once again experienced finality on the trip to Chicago.  I waved goodbye to her as he drove away. 

My eyes were leaking. I watched until the car disappeared.  I walked into a bar.  The next thing I remember is coming out of a blackout.  I was sitting in a dark alley with a man grabbing my arm.  I don’t know what he had in mind, but I am pretty sure it was not the wrath I unleashed on him.  He ended up yelling something in Spanish at me and running away.

I swore I would never allow myself to get close to another child. I just could not keep going through that kind of anguish.  It was as if someone kept reaching inside of me, ripping out everything that was good and then throwing it away.  The only thing I had learned to do was get drunk, high or completely shut down.  I did all three.

We moved back to Omaha and started working at the same bar, but I had stopped hustling when we got married.  One day I was behind the bar talking to my boss, who was sitting by the front door.  A woman came in and asked for my husband.  I told her he was not there.

She pointed to my convertible, “His car is here!”

I told her as nicely as I could, “Oh, he’ll be here in about an hour. Please come back.  I’m sure he wants to see you.”

She left and so did my boss right after her. Later my husband told me not to drink anything when I got off of work because I had to go have shots for gonorrhea the next day. 

I would like to tell you that I was a very understanding wife, but you see I never gave him any sexually transmitted diseases when I was ‘tricking’. I would like to tell you that we lived happily ever after because I truly loved that man, but what really happened is that every time I drank, I got pissed about him giving me the clap.  I drank every day.

Now remember, I’m a blackout drunk. One time I came out of a blackout sitting in a booth next to him with my 22 at his head.  I must have blinked when I realized what I was doing because he ran out of the bar. 

He always took the distributor wire out of the car at night to make sure that no one stole it. One morning I started the car when he was still holding the wire and apparently gave him quite a shock because he cussed me out in Spanish.  Probably a good idea so I didn’t know what he was saying. 

Other times I tried to run over him, shot toward him several times, but he was fast! If he would have ever zigged instead of zagging, I would still be doing life for killing him.

I don’t remember what the final straw was for me, but I remember what it was for him. I put my stuff in my car.  Then I broke, tore up and shredded everything left in our apartment.  I drove out of Omaha in the very early morning at over a hundred miles an hour through a lot of red lights.  I also took two pounds of Acapulco Gold that he was going to sell. 

I never got into weed that much. I liked uppers with my beer, but I was going to make sure he missed me.  When I called him a few weeks later, he told me that he would like a divorce. 

Out of all the relationships, marriages and divorces you will read about in this book, please know I have always compared all of them with the way I still feel about this man. If I could have a do-over in sobriety, it would be with him.

I got paranoid about having the weed when I got to Adel. I didn’t want to do any more time, especially for being in possession of crap I didn’t use.  I gave it to a guy that owned a bar.  You would have thought I gave him a million dollars.  I got beer free for quite awhile.

I stayed with dad north of Adel when I left #2. He had bought a bedroom suite for the extra bedroom.  He told me that I was welcome to stay there as long as I wanted. 

I wrote a note shortly after I arrived and left it on the kitchen counter:

“Dear Dad,

Am at Doug’s

Bring Money

Love Bonnie”

He would come home from work, turn the note face down on the counter and come to the bar. He’d have a few beers, give me a few dollars to play pool and go home.  The next day I would turn the note face up and go to the bar.  We did that every day for a long time. 

I finally got myself together enough to accept the manager’s position at a custom drapery shop in Adel. I hired one of the other inmates trained to make custom drapes at Rockwell.  We did a great job until the owners started paying us with checks that bounced.  The third time we both quit. 

Do you believe in Karma? I do!  For me it is basically that we reap what we sow.  Receiving those checks that bounced helped me understand how I had made the people feel when I passed those rubber checks to them after the accident.  I didn’t like the feeling and have never written a bad check since then. 

In fact, going through similar situations is how I learned some of the ‘it’ everybody thought I already knew.   When I had things taken from me, I learned how much I had violated others when I stole from them.  When someone lied to or about me, I learned how much I hurt others and why they did not trust me.  When someone betrayed me, I had to feel the full extent of the treachery.  I never wanted another person to feel those things from my actions again so I stopped it.  I still make amends when I mess up.  I am now comfortable saying, ‘Why don’t you ask them?’ or ‘Why don’t you talk to them about it?’ instead of letting others gossip to me.

I started a relationship with a married diesel mechanic while I was living with dad. Years later, when he looked me up, I told him that I had been sober for a few years in a 12-Step program.  “You may want to join too.  You drank right along with me.”

He laughed, “I poured my beer into your mug so I could stay sober and keep you out of trouble.”

I spent some more time drinking and drugging after I quit the drapery shop. Then I went to work tending bar at the bowling alley in Adel for $2 an hour plus tips.  That was not bad wages for a woman without a high school diploma back then. 

The bar owner in Omaha had trained me very well.  I could easily handle a large number of people as both bartender and waitress.  The bowling alley owner had to hire two people to take my place when I quit a few months later.   

Dad told me that an employee from Rockwell wanted me to call her. She was the woman that had trained me to make custom drapes.  She said that she was doing the window treatments for an elderly care facility in Dallas Center and wanted me to fabricate the drapes for one of the wings. 

I borrowed $500 from dad to buy a sewing machine and other supplies. Dad built my tables in his basement.  My work room was ready.  I got a state sales tax permit and was accepted to sell fabric and drapery hardware by the wholesalers.  Bonnie’s Drapery was up and running. Now it was up to me to figure out the rest. 

Everybody had gone except dad the last night I worked at the bowling alley. The doors were locked.  I was cleaning everything up.  The owner was sitting next to dad at the bar.  He was still trying to get dad to talk me into continuing to work for him, “She doesn’t even know if anybody will buy anything from her.”

Dad took a drink of his beer, turned and looked straight at him, “At least she’s got the guts to try!”