The First Shock...

With my brother's birth in the spring of 1954 and dad having a Grand Mal epileptic seizure and with my first birthday and dad throwing nearly the entire contents of our apartment out the window on Christmas Eve of 1957. my mother now knew two things about dad she did not know about him when she agreed to and did marry him on Halloween of 1952:

(1.) That he had epilepsy and

(2.) That there were bizarre behaviors with this man, both her husband and the father of her two young sons.

It would be scant two-years later before I would be subjected to my first experience with the other side of my dad.

It was late November of 1959. I was one-month shy of turning three-years old.

We were in our apartment in the Bel-Air Apartments on upper West Burnside in Portland, Oregon. As shared in the second blog entry here, the Bel-Air was owned by my maternal grandmother, Henrietta Hitchman, who lived in the apartment directly across the large hallway of the Bel-Air.

(Extra: The start of what started that night I did not include in the book.)

Dad was flipping back and forth very quickly between nice dad and evil dad. (Such was his mental health illness.)

With my five-year-old brother (Charles) by the hand and me in her arms, mom ran us down the thirty foot long hallway to the front door of our apartment. In a panic, she could not get the chain off the door as dad was heading down the hallway towards us.

"Damn it! Damn it!" mom kept saying as she struggled with the chain.

"What's the matter, Nora?" dad asked from the other end of the hallway.

"You know what the matter is, John. You stay away from us!"

"But, Nora, honey dearest. I just want to hold you and the boys. I just want to hold you...and kill you."

In one violent and strong willed motion, mom literally ripped the chain off the door. With dad advancing on us down the hallway, mom threw the door open, ran us across the hallway to grandmother's apartment.

(Moving forward, the book picks up the story.)

"Mother! Mother! For God's sake, Mother! Wake up and open the door!"

Mom was screaming as she pounded on the door while holding me in one arm while looking back across the hallway where dad was standing in the open doorway of our apartment.

"What is it, Nora, honey?" Grandmother Hitchman said in her thick Austrian accent as she opened the door.

"It's John. He's...he's crazy," mom said as she rushed us past grandmother and directed her mother to close the door and lock it.

With mom getting Charles and me situated on grandmother's living room sofa, grandmother said that the first order of business was for her to make some hot chocolate for Charles and me.

"We don't have time for hot chocolate," mom said, thinking her mother was not understanding the gravity of the situation.

On the contrary, Henrietta was not like an old foolish woman. She understood perfectly. She pulled mom aside.

"Nora," she began. "We are all safe in here. We will deal with John and whatever is going on. But first we have two little boys. Likely two scared little boys. And that should be your first priority. Comforting them."

It took but a second to realize that her very wise mother was right. We were now all safe. Charles and me should, for the moment, be the priority.

"Of course, mother. You are right," mom said. "Make the hot chocolates."

"Would you like those little white marshmallows, Crissy?" she asked me. (Crissy was my nickname for her. My name Christian had come from grandmother's favorite brother and nephew, both named Christian.) She knew I loved the little white things.

No sooner had grandmother returned from the kitchen with the two hot chocolates (in antique Santa Claus head mugs that had come from her native Vienna, Austria decades earlier), there was a pounding on grandmother's door just as she had set the hot chocolates down in front of Charles and me.

"Open this fucking, God-damned door, you two worthless cunt bitches!" dad yelled at the door.

Grandmother started down the long hallway towards her front door.

"For Pete's sake, mother, don't open the door," mom told grandmother.

"I'm not opening the door, Nora," grandmother said.

Mom followed grandmother down to the door. Getting up from the sofa, I followed them. But only to the end of the hallway.

"John," grandmother said through the closed door. "What's the matter?"

"I want to talk to my wife, you old bitch!" dad hollered.

Read the rest of this episode in the book.