Pico de Orizaba

Pico de Orizaba
Taken from Huatusco, Veracruz, the closest town to Margarita's family's ranch.

Thursday, July 7, 2011

Button Pushing,Summer Squalls and Prince Valient in the Rhyland Inn

My mother was an expert at pushing buttons.  It wasn't something she did casually.  Often you could see the intention behind it, the trapping the young man in a corner, the enjoying of embarrassing him infront of his girlfriend, like mentioning how often he jerked off...  However, it could have been something much more drawn out, much more subtle.  When I come up with the actual example...  The pushing buttons is the placing the other in a vulnerable position, the backing him into a corner...  My sisters picked up on her game, Beth being the more agressive one in high school...  When Beth and Sheri were on the same level, the button pushing was pressed until I lost my cool.  And that's the idea.  If I lose my cool, they have all the proof that I am the one who is wrong, and then Mommy Dearest can come down on me, like the time they locked me out of the house and I broke the window.  Nice game, no?  It wa a sport.  One of them would start the teasing, usually Beth and would push until I started after her, chasing her out the door.  All the while, the Sheri went around the house locking the windows and the doors, leaving one open for Beth, cheering her on.  And, BAM, there I was, stuck outside, usually without shoes on, often during the Winter when the ground was frozen.  


Sheri controlled the Television.  She rode in the front seat.  And I was immasculated.  Sheri was 3 years older than me and I was 2 years older than Beth. But I always received the same allowance as Beth and had the same curfew as her and when Sheri went away to college, I didn't graduate to the front seat, but to the sharing of it with Beth...  Sounds trivial, no?  But, not for adolescents....  What does this teach a young man about social justice and about self-confidence?  


But back to button pushing.  It's all about power and re-enforcing control.  I've pushed my brother-in-law's buttons.  I know how to do that.  I do it to see a response, to make a statement. I imagine if I am bored I do it for foolish entertainment.  But I don't do it as a way of controlling.  I have a tendency towards pushing the buttons of pets, especially cats and, at the ranch, chickens...  I like teasing them until I receive a reaction and it's time to stop.  But, for my mother, the button pushing was for a sick pleasure.  I wonder if it's similar to the pleasure she received pushing her younger brother through the plate glass door...  


I don't know how old I was, I must have been in the community college when my mother started saying to me, "Your father was so romantic", stressing the word romantic and drawing it out...  Thinking back on that evening, I wonder if she was high...  It was kind of like a marijuana-type behavior.  But she was conscious of what she was doing.  Why do I say that?  Because she repeated the statement with more emphasis the more I reacted with my facial expressions.  This wasn't the first time she had mentioned my father being romantic.  So, at first I wasn't bothered. Those other times were normal and comfortable conversations.  But this time she directed the statement towards me in a way that made me feel repulsed, as if I saw her undressing.  My repulsion inspired her and she followed me up the stairs as I fled her disgusting game.  I fled to my room at the end of the hall and she opened the door.  Standing in the doorway she repeated, "your father was so romantic.  So Romantic.  So romantic." jeering at me.  What was her problem?  Why must she pursue me so?  Why was that a game my sisters played with me?


Later on, my mother changed the story about the romance between Marsha Nacht and Alan Goldstein.  She claimed that she wasn't in-love with him.  She said that she only saw my father as a ticket out of her horrible life in Brooklyn and Queens.  I don't know if she was doing that to convince herself that she was with Bruce for love or if she was trying to further negate my value, which was directly connected with the fantasy massaged into my brain about who my father was.  Now, if my mother never truly loved my father, then there was absolutely no hope.  Why not?  Because everyone had said that I looked so much like Alan, although I didn't have his long thin legs (words repeated by my mother) nor did I have his aqualine nose too bad you didn't get daddy's long legs; but thank God you didn't get his nose!  I love those aqualine noses.  That's one of the things I loved about Anya's and Rivka's faces...  I love the Arabic nose...  If she never loved my father, then that one romantic base of my existence ceases existing.  The romantic story I and played repeatedly in my head becomes deflated.  Now, my father, instead of being galant and romantic and so attractive and intelligent, becomes a fool.  Instead of his death being a tragedy, it becomes a partial farce.  Not only had I lost my father, I had become some form of a bastard.  There was no hope.  If she hadn't loved him, then it is confirmed that she didn't love me.  I had lost both the mentor physically when he died and spiritually, since the fantasy was uncorked and drained...   


In June 1997, my mother called me up informing me that her boyfriend of 9 years, Bruce, had proposed to her. And she didn't know what to think.  This was not long after I broke up with Randi and right before I was fired by Russell Sage.  In fact, I believe it was before my 28th birthday because I believe I recall her coming to New York City where we talked about it personally at the French restaurant she took me to for my birthday...  And yes, now she celebrated it with me...  My mother asked me, "what would daddy think?  Should I go through with it?  Do you think he'll be mad?"  This coming from a person who frequented psychics in New Hope, Pennsylvania and then rejected whatever esoteric or metaphysical idea I mentioned that I had actually experienced myself...  Coming from a person who doesn't believe she believes in God.  Who talks about one shot deals and who ignores everything I say about her father having appeared in the photograph, although she could see it with her own eyes.  I talked to her about Astrology.  I talked to her about what the psychic Estrella said. Later on I talked to her about painting or drawing all if my girlfriends before having met them and about what Mauricio said in Xalapa in 2005 and she ignored those discoveries and changed the subject.  But when she became obsessed with what would my deceased father say, I was all ears.  And I said, like the oh so good son, "Look mom, it's 23 years since dad's death.  I am certain that he believes you waited enough time.  I think he will be happy for you."  And she responded shaking her head, "I don't know..." And she had lived that I don't know with Bruce even after the beautiful wedding.  I always wondered if my mother compared Bruce to Alan, Bruce losing each and every time. But then my mother decided to change the history; that she never loved my father...  And that's how the Goldstein/Nacht denile game is played out.  You replace reality with fantasy whichever way is most convenient.  And that is my relationship with those family members...  


Now, back to the wrath of my father.  That day that Bruce proposed to my mother in the Rhyland Inn in Whitehouse Station, NJ, where Ronald Reagan once had a reunion in the 80s and where I had my Bar Mitzvah reception in 1982, I was in the west end of Prospect Park waiting for a free Platters concert to begin in the music shell... That day two important things occurred at the same time.  So, I wouldn't know until later that maybe it had nothing to do with the letter I received in my mailbox...  In any case, awaiting the beginning of the Platters concern, a squall picked up. You've gotta understand that I was in Brooklyn and they were 70 miles west in Hunterdon County, NJ.  I realized that at any minute I would be drenched.  So I started walking at a fast pace towards Prospect Park Southwest.  I only lived a 7 minute walk from my apartment.  So there shouldn't have been a problem.  However, the wind picked up so rapidly, I heard the cracking of limbs over my head and heard those limbs crashing to the ground around me.  I began running, not looking up.  In the seconds between crossing the upper corner of the park and reaching the street, limbs and trees had fallen all over, covering the broad sidewalk sloping down Prospect Park Southwest.  By the time I had reached my apartment, I was totally drenched, my clothing plastered to my skin.  Actually, looking back, the reason I ran to my apartment was because I had left all the windows open.  Since I lived on the top floor without any other buildings blocking the southern windows, I knew that the wind would drive the torrential rain into my livingroom and dining room.  And now I realize that Bruce had proposed to my mother after my birthday and after I was fired from The Russell Sage Foundation, because, before dashing up the steps, I checked my mailbox and received the surprise of the year; a letter from my high school "sweetheart" Cathy Bayer.  Months earlier, while still working at the Russell Sage Foundation, I had sent a letter to her mother's house in Branchburg.  Two months later I received response letter, but all the way from Flagstaff, Arizona.  It was two pages long.  The first page was normal friendly stuff.  But at the end of the page Cathy asked me to make sure I was sitting down.  That was not a good sign.  On the following page she wrote that she was getting married and that she truly needed my blessing.  She was getting married to her high school friend Billy Coscia... They had travelled out to Arizona on a whim and decided to marry out of the blue.  She told me that she figured that, since they had been friends for so long, why not?  After all the failed relationships she had in the past.  I wasn't one of them, since we were always involved with some else when one of us broke up with our significant other...  with one exception.  Today they have two grown children and are happily divorced...  In the letter Cathy left her phone number and asked me to call her.  You have no idea how badly I wanted to tell her the truth, that I was not happy for her.  But, I couldn't do that to her.  Maybe I should have...  However, I don't believe we would have fared any better... 


At the same time 70 miles away, Bruce was about to propose to my mother.  They lived together in the house that my mother bought with my father.  So, they went together in Bruce's brand spanking new Buick and parked it below the majestic trees that lined the drive leading to the Inn.  The dinner had just begun when the squall struck, the wind picked up and the lights went out.  However, since the proposal had been planned in advance by Bruce Who is the romantic guy now? and because this was one truly classy joint, the waiters were prepared.  They came out with candles for all the tables.  There were violins playing.  However, when they came out to my mother and Bruce's table, they were holding a tray full of rose petals.  Below the rose petals was a diamond engagement ring.  Look, I wasn't there.  But my mother told me the whole story when she also asked for my blessing visiting me in New York City.  The problem with the story is that, when they left the Inn, they found Bruce's brand new Buick plastered below one of the majestic trees that had fallen...  Maybe that's why she was so concerned.  But then why doesn't she understand anything that I've said over the years, nor does she understand any of this blog?  Why does she insist upon the One Shot Deal, if it's pretty damn clear what had happened and she was concerned...  Wouldn't believing have helped us out much more than living in denile?  And I'm not talking about religion and churches and an man with a long white beard looking down upon us...  


I'm beginning to understand when the ball started rolling with my belief in God and the metaphysical... It began that day I received Cathy's letter and Bruce proposed to my mother...  This is why you must have patience and follow the writings...  It all unravels. 

No comments: