CHAPTER 27: The Opera: Act II; Part 3
From "The Saga of One F**ked Mother"
This section of Chapter 27 begins with Legion going over a handwritten list by Herry, in which he admits “opprobrious truths” that should have precluded him from getting sole custody. He told the Court Legion fabricated it, which could have easily been disproven. But the judge ignored it and also that Herry had not produced discovery or answered interrogatories. This is part of the custody-switching scheme, since the Appellate Court cannot take into account evidence not on the trial court record.
Legion refuses to submit to “therapy” overseen by Herry and that is used to deny any visits with her boys, but she sneaks and spends time with them after school. However, she must spend another entire holiday season alone, rocking and rocking to cope with the loss of her precious boys.
Part 3 begins with Legion having decided to appeal the fraudulent and unjust verdict of sole custody for Herry and zero visitation for her. But her attorney requires a small fortune up front and she’s already been drained of everything from litigating the two lower court trials. She desperately looks for someone who can loan her money so she can do the appeal…
In the last section, the judge grants Herry his request—sole custody and complete control over whether Legion gets visits with the boys. She is required to undergo a “mental health program” meant to silence her about Herry’s abuse and get her to get with the program.
CHAPTER 27 of Mother-Fucking: The Saga of One Fucked Mother begins with Act I of “The Opera”—from Book 3, the last part of the book. “The Opera” has three Acts with five Parts—one for each of the three Family Court and two Appellate Court trials. Chapter 27 covers Acts I and II: the first two Family Court trials and the first Appellate Court trial. [This is a long chapter and will be published in newsletter-sized bites.]
Dr. Blue’s novel is based on her own experience of the Custody Crisis. It uniquely conveys how Family Court judges are “mother-fucking” women—a form of systemic oppression and violence directed at ex-wives—as protagonist Legion is systematically and methodically deprived of her children and money and reduced to “one fucked mother”.
Chapters are stand-alone interesting so you can begin reading anywhere. A Cast of Characters follows to help readers at any point [on the web page]. All published chapters are included in the Section: “Saga of One F**ked Mother” accessible on the top bar of the home page of Women’s Coalition News & Views. Sequential chapters are published every Wednesday and subscribers will find them in their inboxes, so make sure to subscribe if you haven’t yet!
TEASERS
Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s all came and all went; and I had had no Truemaier Boys with me at any time. Grace, Lionel, László, Judd, Linda, Margaret, Abraham, Adam and I righteously refused to put together a proposal of “a program of mental therapy” for me … None of his ex‑cunt’s non‑cooperation pleased Herry.
I rocked. The chill grew deeper. Weeks passed. Nights and days and nights and days and nights and days. I rocked.
Dr. True's Opera in Three Acts—with Five Parts
CHAPTER 27: Act II; Last Section of Part 2, Start of Part 3
What follows is from Herry’s own script scribbled down onto pages taken from a Pfizer drug rep’s freebie doxycycline hyclate pad left from time to time around the laboratory of the Good and Wonderful Doctor, that is, from out of Dr Herod Edinsmaier’s own hand! Verbatim! and In Toto! [except for the bracketed phrases which are my only added comments]:
“Fears and Resentment of Legion:
Fears of Legion.
Fears of other people learning the truth about me.
Afraid that I am a sex/love/romance addict.
Told Fannie about Murielle/Celeste, animals.—Affects my self‑esteem. [Legion told, that is; the Good and Wonderful Doctor certainly did not reveal any of his proclivities for incest and bestiality to Ms. Fannie!]
Threatens to beat me in court.—Affects my self‑esteem.
Calls my place a pigpen.
Sends me books and letters.
Legion’s criticism/opinion of me gets into my mind and it is like I hear her and feel unsure of myself or guilty as if I have done something wrong. E.g. I think what time would she put the kids to bed? Would she feed them better than I would? Am I really a sex/love addict? Am I really obsessed to the point that I would endanger the kids? Am I abandoning the kids? I fear I am not a responsible parent. I fear I am not a responsible pathologist. I am abandoned by the boys. I will have to live alone without a loving wife.
What I have been doing?
Calling long distance [to Fannie] when I feel down. Writing many cards and long letters, love letters—but at work. Saying I am in love, that I love her. Invited her to Hawaii [medical meeting]. Almost invited her to Minnesota [lakeside with the Boys after their Quaker camp]. Talking of permanence but all we have in common is religion, Irish Catholic mothers with that training especially about sex and high school experience but what did we talk about in high school? Talked of someone from back then and how it was wrong for me to go after her; if I was so attached to Fannie, then why would I go for her? I said because I wondered if it would happen again. Maybe there was nothing at all wrong with my dating her. Maybe there was nothing at all wrong with her dating my brother, Atwater. Telling her [Ms. Fannie Issicran McLive] about possibility of moving, changing jobs. Paying attention to Mary Jane. Talking of how hard this next year will be.
What I am promising or advertising:
1) love 2) a hurt that Fannie can fix 3) a father for her daughter 4) acceptance of her appearance/desire for her body 5) “help” with parenting 6) more money/more room/bigger house
Fannie seems to offer:
1) someone who loves me without criticism or reservation 2) a child who chooses to be with me and who is affectionate 3) a home where someone lives; a place to come home to 4) economic security = that old woman friend of hers’ inheritance [ ! ! ! ! ] 5) emotional security; someone I can love, trust and confide in; outlet for my affection, emotions 6) safety from Legion’s criticism 7) refuge from job and parental responsibilities [ ! ! ! ! ] 8) chance to realize and relive a 26‑year‑old fantasy [ ! ! ! ! ] 9) chance to be young and carefree again [ ! ! ! ! ] 10) driving to Kansas six hours each way 11) making love to her 12) asking about her tubal 13) sending her pictures of me and the boys
What I have done with Mary Jane:
1) told her I like Fannie 2) sent her cards signed ‘love Herry’ 3) paid attention to her, baseball, swimming, pool, bowling 4) returned her hugs 5) gave her advice like I tell my boys 6) bought her gifts 7) openly expressed affection for Fannie 8) ?acted like Dad?
What she has done/said:
1) she is in love with me 2) I was the first and only one she was in love with 3) she vowed to be abstinent until she were with someone to whom she felt spiritually/emotionally intimate—like me 4) told me about her older, adopted daughter, about being attacked [ ! ! ! ! ] 5) sent me cards/letters 6) visited me in Ames—her suggestion; it surprised me but I immediately accepted 7) sent me books to read, tapes to listen to 8) told me about her tubal, stapling, medifast [ ! ! ! ! ] 9) told me she could become certified in Iowa 10) told me in six years she would be ready to quit teaching and work at McDonald’s and she didn’t care where the burger place was located
My history with Legion:
Had ideas about her roommates but never gave any sign [ ! ! ! ! … JYeah, that is what Herry, of course, wanted to believe: that I did not know! But … I knew! I always knew that he had had “ideas” about my roommates! All women I know … know this!] Trying to be a grad student but spending my time frivolously drinking and talking to friends, taking some courses, accepted to med school for Fall ’75. Worked in lab and had hots for new tech in Bio 101. Continued living in trailer. I really thought I might die. I got sick with Loeffler’s syndrome. Unable to work in lab or elsewhere. Spent week at the Iowa City sanitarium and got better; came back to drive batch truck and drop out of grad school. I thought I would call it off when I went to Iowa City. I did not expect to marry Legion. Entered med school. Went out, girls and booze. Often lonely; wanted to be as successful with girls as my friend was. I did not feel committed to Legion but didn’t send her away either. She came down at Thanksgiving for the weekend; she got pregnant. I don’t recall ever going to Ames to visit her there. My birthday she told me she was pregnant. I spent my weekends with other girls though; best I’d ever had. Getting by in med school ‘working under half steam.’ Felt isolated from other med students; blamed it on difference in my age from them. I WANTED ABORTION; EASY FOR ME TO GET HER ONE at the med school. Legion’d rejected it outright. Knew she would; she’d always been for choice but it was her choice she’d always said to keep any baby she’d ever came up pregnant with. [ ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! Herry wanted Zane ABORTED! Very usual abuser thinking! Like it is ever the man’s choice!] AmTaham came to Iowa City, called me selfish and made threats of what sounded like he was going to try to obtain custody of the baby. He asked if my parents knew. I said I would tell them when we knew what we would do. He replied that if I had not told them in one week, he would. I contacted student legal services; said there’d be no way he could get custody as long as Legion didn’t consent. Continued med school. Rented trailer to friend. Discussed how a new baby could be managed; Legion couldn’t do it and stay in school. Dean said I could leave and get back in in a year if I wanted; was subject to any changes in the curriculum was all. We moved into Pammel Court in Ames; I got work at the factory. I enjoyed my life and work. We had lots of sex.”
Back to myself I spat, “Herry! ‘After you? Coming after you?!’ How you! How so narcissistically right on the mark of you, Herry! It was never about … you. Never you, Dr. Edinsmaier. Nor your fucking money. Not that and not your status. It was never, fucking ever about you, Herry. It was about the Boys. And, yeah. Yeah, you’re right all right! And so was Mirzah when he told Mz. CherryBabe Canard. I would be a‑comin’ after them, and I still will! It was never, ‘You call, O He Who Must Be Obeyed, and I do your bidding,’ Herry. I have the Truth. Just try. Just try and hold us mothers back! ‘Young and carefree again?’ Whaaa’, Herry? “Carefree again”?! With three boys and a couple of stepchildren? Carefree?! Yeah, riiiight. ‘Refuge from job and parental responsibilities?’ Well, fuuuuck that! That’s not even to mention the ‘attack’, or ‘Murielle, Celeste and the animals’, Herry! You write that you gave “no sign” about my roommates, Herry? You fool. You fucking, narcissistic fool, Herry! I always knew. We women who are roommates? We always know! But … I am a fucked fool … nevertheless! ‘Fool me twice, shame on me’–fool! That kinda’ fool! Was that that you ‘thought’ you might die when I nursed you for three months’ time back from that pulmonary parasitism’s brink––or that you ‘wished’ you might die! ‘Sons, you have no mother! Mother, you have no sons!’ ??? Uh‑uh. No. No. Don’t even go there. Ya’ got one thing gone straight at least though, Herry: what you were to me! ‘There. Goes. My. Sex. Object.’ But you, Herry? You take my babies? Well, you’re in for it then. Just try. Just try to hold this ‘girl’ back! You take my Boys away from me?! What did you expect?! What did you expect?! I wouldn’t notice?! … I’ma gonna NOTICE! I am! I am a direct descendant of AmTaham True and, as he had been when at once breathing, am myself a Righteous Ancestor‑in‑Training! I. Am. Going. To. Notice!
Another piece of ‘testimonial evidence’ … another FACT, O He Who Is THE So Great and Wonderful Doctor Herod Edinsmaier! ONE LAST FACT here, O He Who Is, in veridicality, THE Mother‑Fucker: You demanded of me … Zane’s ABORTION, You Terrorist! You Thug! You Smug Thug! You Savage! MY BODY. MY CHILD. MY CHOICE.
And what you never––THEN––acknowledged, Terrorist Herry: IF I had aborted Zane, THEN … THEN … there NEVER, EVER EITHER would have existed a Jesse or a Mirzah! IF I had had Zane aborted, THEN we––you and I––would not have had either the same subsequent unions nor any such future liaison whatsoever at all. THUS, NO JESSE. THUS, NO MIRZAH. Yet you, Abortion–Commander Herod Edinsmaier, you have held onto––all of this time––you have possessed and ordered it up, although no longer “legal,” certainly not “constitutional” and NEVER MORAL … the entire World’s “RULE of PATRIARCHAL LAW” at your whimsy, ‘SONS, YOU HAVE NO MOTHER! MOTHER, YOU HAVE NO SONS!’ ”
The truck pulled up, a Ryder 24‑footer even! And into its back end on Saturday, 13 October 1990, around about 11:30 am went one bicycle. Nothing else. Nothing else had my 14‑, 12‑ or 10‑year‑old ready, packed or, most importantly, the desire to put into Daddee‑Herry’s (literally) mother‑fucking truck.
AmTaham True, with every centimeter of his brain, blood and flesh the Cinque—“only reason I ever was … is … for Legion now”—physique, stood statuesque and in complete view of us all at the west window to the side of my king bed, its curtains purposefully this time pulled completely back and him poised there in his full ancestral force and regalia watching over me. Two of his precious progeny climbed into the cab; I let go of Mirzah, and he belted himself up into the backseat of Ms. Fannie Issicran McLive’s red Baretta which had been following her Herry everywhere that daMan led.
“We’ll see allya’all back here in just a little bit. I promise,” and I smiled and waved. Off the Good and Wonderful Doctor spirited this True mother’s three Sons. They were gone from my sight around the corner at the top of Havencourt in less than a minute’s time. I went back inside to Zephyr, Rex and Lady, their tomkitty, serpentine kingsnake and zebra finch, all three of the Boys’ pets never in the custody of … and, most assuredly, never the work of actually loving and caring for them wanted by … Herry the Daddee.
* * * *
Come to find out, Herry had no job anymore either. Not here in Ames he didn’t. He had vacated his and Ms. Fannie McLive’s apartment complex in Ames’ west section and moved her and Mary Jane once again. Down to a two‑level bungalow on 69th in Urbandale, a northwest suburb of Des Moines, and 65 minutes of interstate driving time door to door from mine. Apparently it was his ‘plan’ to practice pathology around that metro in a per diem, locum tenens capacity at various laboratories while all the while seeking permanency with an outfit that suited him. Guess the White Law Firm outta Kansas City, the buckos who represented the legal concerns for the Downshim Pathology Laboratories and its branches, of which the Ames one had been, had had their full‑up fill with Slacker Herry’s base and boorish bunkum––his tardiness, his contrariness and Dr. Edinsmaier’s outright absence at inappropriate times––as, er, with deeply anesthetized and, therefore, very unconscious women!––and … shall we say, had “released” him. Something else that never seemed to much matter to the High Aggrandizier although Judge Seizor did know, too, of Dr. Herod Edinsmaier’s work habits. Or, rather, Herry‑Daddee’s such dearth thereof!
I had 30 days to appeal and did. AmTaham and Mehitable left me alone and went back to Williamsburg, of course. I had pinned inside Jesse’s pocket along with all of the other important telephone numbers the one of a children’s legal advocacy agency in the capital city, Des Moines, where one of the Democratic Party’s former state senators was now its director, an attorney, too, with two small boys himself, Mr. Ralph Berg, a man all three of my children had met and against whose kiddos Jesse had played soccer from time to time. Of course, they all had Grace and Lionel’s telephone numbers, too.
The next Monday, a week after the one that some federal workers call a Columbus Day holiday while righteous, Native American ancestors‑in‑training instead term it Indigenous People’s Day, nonetheless, a day off from their work for those feds, Mirzah occupied a freed‑up desk in a fifth grade at Urbandale’s Karen Farmer Elementary School. And whose classroom I immediately visited for an afternoon. I made myself known to his teacher and the school’s principal and asked for reports often while being so, so careful not to let it out directly that I was not the custodial parent fearing, of course, that so mother‑fuckingly common backlash. Of the Rachel on her Victoria Joy’s emergency C‑section birthing day variety––even ever rampant as I type in Y2003! That mother‑fucking backlash.
Jesse and Zane were each enrolled in sixth and eighth grade sections at the capital city burb’s one middle school where its staffers needed a parent volunteer to assist the nurse with the school’s annual fall scoliosis checks. The Truemaiers were represented by an Ancestor in Training all right; but, trust me, it was not the ‘real’ doctor, the Good Medical Doctor Edinsmaier nor his Ms. Fannie Issicran who proffered themselves up, let alone, their time.
These two––my visit to Mirzah’s grade and the spine‑spotting scope‑out at the suburb’s middle school––were the last times officials from either Urbandale school even spoke to me––without my forcing it the one future time it became so weirdly necessary for me to press for the middle school principal’s attention.
László wondered aloud to me incredulously, “How can you possibly do it? I’ve already maxed out what I can loan ya’, Legion?” Thus began Act Two Part Three of The Opera … the appeal of Trial Two!
“I know you have, László. So’s everyone else from whom I’ve borrowed. Well, no, they haven’t said as much. It’s just that I can’t ask ‘em for anymore than I already have. I’m calling Wyman tonight. I have no choice. He just might. Especially if I ask him and his family, ya’ know, his sister and their mom and dad to just put it directly into Carlotta’s accounts. I mean, ya’ know, I wouldn’t even see the money myself.”
“Yeah?!”
“Well, I don’t know. It’s all I can think to do. Hell, they’ve been through this themselves, you remember? An appeal I mean. Carlotta wants $12,000 before even starting. That’s before I can even get word one to her from the transcripts! I only have a thousand left, and that’s gotta go to the court reporter for her to type up the trial transcripts! No, it’s true what you say: my uncle and aunt didn’t win theirs, did they? But, László, I have to. I just have to. I have to get my Boys back.”
Ardys, Sterling and Endys, my own siblings, had never yet, it seemed to me, begun, let alone, taken for themselves somberly, solemnly … Ancestor Training. And, as regards particularly me, their rapscallion of a miscreant–atheist sister, why, they were not about to start now either. I didn’t even bother to ask any one of them. Not before that day … during Trials One and Two––nor on to this very day––has any one of the three other of AmTaham’s and Mehitable’s gene pools loaned me ten cents, … let alone, loaned me the dime for the purpose of their trying––at all––to help me remain in my own children’s lives.
I mean: perhaps one could usually agree that that business would be a worthy enough cause to which to contribute some family nickels. But not these Trues. None of these three True siblings had even so much as placed to me one telephone call wishing us four––the Truemaier Boys and me, their mama––good luck or asking if they could come lend rides or cook some meals or provide childcare or a tank of gasoline. And not a one of these three had attended either trial. For our spirits’ support. Not even for one session of one trial!
For forty‑somethings and as my Boys’ Ancestors‑to‑Be, my two blood sisters and one brother had apparently never wanted for themselves the work of Emily Dickinson’s five words, “My friends are my estate.” And as for “family” and the all‑consuming importance thereof? The absolute attentiveness to and importance of “family”––an institution to which Mehitable True had for so many, many years given such flippantly flapping lip service? Ha! Patriarchal religious hypocrites the lot of them––all. And most assuredly again, the direct mother‑fucking and paternalistic representations and societal thinkings to Zane, Jesse, Mirzah and to me of the backlash of Rachel’s genre and of the virulent and wicked type about which ancient feminist, Dr. Phyllis Chesler, writes in her 1986 tome, Mothers on Trial: The Battle for Children and Custody. They and their silences? Signaling their squawkingly tacit acquiescence of daMan’s, of the patriarchy’s control over all entities DEhuman? About them? About this? This I shall not ever forget!
But I did call my cousin Wyman. He asked me one question, “Will you please not say anything, Legion?”
I refused to sing. What have all of those who actually did will themselves to do the work of being a true friend ever known? All that they ever knew was that Legion True’s and the Truemaier Boys’ appeal, that is, Act Two Part Three, mysteriously became, indeed, on track and … proceeding!
Linda Kincaid, the mother of one of Zane’s Ames friends, worked as a secretary at the National Veterinary Services Laboratory. She was battling for Bazil in a custody matter that no longer involved her three adult daughters. Bazil remained with her in an attractive motorhome with lots of outside flowering perennials which she maintained on the city’s southside not a far piece at all from The Teacup neighborhood. Actually Linda and her home were located on Mulberry Court inside the Old Orchard Trailer Park where on Lime Drive I had brought to his very first babysitter and at noontime nursed at the breast 16‑day‑old Zane, at least the first (haploid! but, nevertheless, O‑so “exalted”) sperm donation of Herry’s about whom I had always known the Loving Daddee––Herod Edinsmaier––had wanted me, Z’s mama, … TO ABORT! Because during the rest of the weekday daytime moments, I was in classes at the veterinary college just a ten‑minute walk to its west. Bazil lived with Linda there, of course, until––until she lost ‘her case.’ She lost custody of Bazil, and he had gone from her to move in to a condo actually inside The Teacup with his middle‑aged father and that specific sperm donor’s latest fleshy fuck, his next live‑in semen spittoon, er, cunt. Linda came to see me one pre‑holiday evening seeking information on appealing from Storm County to the state’s highest court. About appealing a matter of child custody. Seems she was ordered to pay child support along with a mess of other backlashing, albeit “legal,” restrictions that daMan, that daJudge had placed upon her … as well.
I was rocking and called for her to come in. Linda did. We have been solid friends since. Once inside my Havencourt condominium she enjoyed with me a television that was turned completely off, the warmth of a second comforter I loaned her, a cup of hot jasmine‑sage tea and a 48°F room temperature while we talked.
Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s all came and all went; and I had had no Truemaier Boys with me at any time. Grace, Lionel, László, Judd, Linda, Margaret, Abraham, Adam and I righteously refused to put together a proposal of “a program of mental therapy” for me, and Wyman had not expected that I would anyhow! None of his ex‑cunt’s non‑cooperation pleased Herry. Or Ms. Fannie Issicran McLive, daMan’s next‑cunt. To say the least. László and I continued with a few icy roadtrips, 60 minutes of one‑way driving time, at a minimum, to visit with Carlotta Klutz. With all of those coastal TV‑videotaping crews long‑gone back to New York City now, I finally had my own attorney’s full attention. Or, allegedly, somewhat more of it than before! Mostly, though, there were the toll calls to My‑Employee Klutz on the telephone.
Apparently the “I just don’t lose. I just don’t know what happened”‑blather from a babbling Barrister Klutz just wasn’t enough of an explanation into my one hearing ear to satisfy me, a most veritably vexed Dr. Legion True.
“You lost, Fucker, because of a mother‑fucking number of things, one gargantuan one of which was: you were not paying to me and to my matters the attention ‘my case’ required, Idiot Klutz!” No, none of that had Cousin Wyman nor I told my lawyer; but his telephone call to her, after mine to him, apparently woke her up some. I most certainly could have then and before, even since, used some more friends in higher places like Wyman Natures. I myself? Alone? I smacked about as much sway with the blank‑suited broncos of downtown Des Moines’ gazillion law firms as a soggy noodle smashed into one of its sidewalks. None of us mothers do. That’s present tense: none of us mamas do.
I rocked. The chill grew deeper. Weeks passed. Nights and days and nights and days and nights and days. I rocked.
Lady stopped laying and ruffled and furled but by my recoiling her cage further up nearer to the ceiling, she wasn’t too, too cold I thought. “How could Herry not even ask, let alone not demand, to take the Boys’ belovéd pets with them all? How could an alleged ‘loving father’ not even want to take the kiddos’ kitty with him?! O JYeah!” I reminded myself, “there would have been with Daddee’s taking ‘primary‑care custody,’ too, of all of the Boys’ animals … the work for Herry Edinsmaier of just having to remember … about them!”
I saved enough from the alimony for Rex’s groceries! … for her two mice every three to four weeks was all now. And went to meals for myself of microwaved baked potatoes featuring fake butter and salt and pepper and, for dessert, sliced bananas under sprinkled sugar nestled in skim milk. I cashed in every single one of the IRAs accumulated to date so far, all of them the traditional kind since there weren’t any such ones at the time as the Roth type. The tax and penalties due on that deed the next year as my punishment for this too‑early liquidating exploit of mine there in the winter of 1991, I gave not even one thought to. And on a life insurance policy, the one on me, I took out a loan. Creative financing? Hmmm. Hardly that. Yet––then or since, not a one of any funding government’s pennies have I ever taken in charitable welfare! For anything.
There was still intact, of course, that other insurance policy where I was the benefactor and also, most fortuitously, its owner as well and about which Mr. Jazzy Jinx had simply put an index finger to his pursed and very, very closed lips. The insured was Dr. Herod Edinsmaier, and the policy was only a term one for $100,000; but Lawyer Jinx advised me that Herry’s Fancier Schmancier Attorney Shindy Scheisser had apparently altogether missed it! on the previously court‑ordered disclosures which had been my answers to the Interrogatories and to the Production of Documents, a massive mistake which he, that is, which Mr. Jazzy Jinx extolled, er, boasted about himself to me that he never, ever made. “Ya’ just don’t wanna let these stay,” he’d taught me, “in case, something dreadful comes up happening after the divorce. No, no, no, these don’t stay intact. These policies a punctilious and forthright attorney’ll always look for and have them all either dropped, cashed in or nullified––ya’ know, made void––as part of the dissolution settlement cuz ya’ just can never know. Ya’ know? You can never know who to trust afterwards!” Mine on the Good and Wonderful Doctor Herod Edinsmaier, single‑engine prop pilot to the Midwest’s wild blue yonder? Mine was so intact and as Wizened and Wise Friend Frieda had quite often passionately besot me to keep it utterly unbroken … was so going to stay, for always, exactly that way––intact! No matter what! … I vowed. To myself and to Frieda. This I had promised!
Linda from her workplace brought to me a blank copy of the SF–171, that dastardly hideous application for employment at any job … federal! For anything federally connected or for services that I perform wherein my paycheck is given over to me through the auspices of the United States Congress, an SF–171 must be filled out. This was not the first one I had ever completed, but that I did do––arduously on the old black Brother electric typewriter through a ridiculously herculean total of 17 supplemental pages of education and experience history––and turned it in to the National Veterinary Services Laboratory and to the National Animal Disease Center and to the National Veterinary Biologics Laboratory, there being––at the end of this 1990 year––not one local university professorship opening in veterinary microbiology advertised nor available to application.
Within moments of turning in this tome, well, a few January days and nights of rocking really, and bedecked in the very same L.L. Bean cinnamon tweed pencil skirt suit in which wool I had earlier landed the Kansas State assistant professorate post almost exactly five years to the month, I was in a veterinary laboratory’s conference room … interviewing. Other than I, only men present. Regarding a rather attractive governmental position with a GS–11 or –12 classification at the NADC––one at which I was to work on microbes of the genera Salmonella and Chlamydia. And at all of the mighty sweet federal benefits, of course, with $31,900 to start and “… when could that be?!”
“Hhmmm, this is lovely! I’ll be back in touch just as soon as I check on something,” I replied.
The something that needed my attention right then was the conditions of the offer to me by those other federales: by some other men over at the Biologics Unit, a position even more to my liking––that is, vaccines and bacterins and the development and production of veterinary immunizing agents––smack in line with my PhD program actually! This one even went so far as to promise me that I would be almost exclusively working with bovines again, either dairy or beef, and perhaps some dealings with swine, too, and “ … will that suit?!”
“Hell, yes! That will soooo suit!” Same ranking, same bucks essentially. The cattle and hogs after the thousands and thousands of mice and rats first, of course. O well. In this town that was the name of the game.
Good, good news all of this! Truly mighty fine news––since, hey, there were no more IRAs nor any other pieces of paper worth one damn dollar lying anywhere around our little condo that I could find. And it was such a very, very cold February 1991. I motored right down to the outskirts of Urbandale, more accurately off to the periphery of the soccer and football field and the baseball diamond there at its middle school. When Jesse and Zane caught sight of me, we all moseyed on over to the parking lot of the suburb’s public library adjacent to the school grounds and talked. About the great good fortune about to befall us all!
We four met like this almost every afternoon––in the station wagon at the library lot or inside it at a table behind its stacks near the window where I could view the main artery leading in to the library building or below the bleachers at the sports fields. For 2¼ hours per weekday I wasn’t rocking because I was on Interstate–35 headed to the Mixmaster interchange onto I–80, then west to Merle Hay Mall and onto Aurora Avenue and an itty bitty stretch more westerly again. And back—roundtrip. To … All My Children. Mirzah and I grazed at McDonald’s once, but somehow Ms. Fannie McLive learned of our rampaging cheeseburger escapade so his teacher’s aide commenced to accompanying Mirzah to the curb in the afternoons … at where Mirzah just turned ever so slightly in my direction, the Shitbox and I parked three blocks over north before my fifth‑grader stepped away from my sight and up into the schoolbus. There was only ever that one adventure with burgers and fries for Mirzah and me. I usually drove Jesse and Zane to within a couple of blocks of Herry’s 69th Street bungalow or once in a while as the days lengthened and warmed, even walked them nearly home. Jesse had a good soccer schoolmate, DeAndré Taylor, who accompanied us on our strolls from time to time; he liked anthropology and lived on 68th and south one block, and Jesse and I both had his home telephone number.
I saw the Truemaier Boys more … than “Custodial Parent”‑Herry did.
Dr. Herod Edinsmaier was not at home. Herry‑Daddee wudn’t home.
Not because of his supposedly working any of those long, long per diem locum tenens hours either. Herod was not at home because he was gone, gone, going and gone––outta town. Out … of town! Dr. Edinsmaier’s Great (work‑of‑parenting) Escape! As per … usual!
[to be continued…]
CAST OF CHARACTERS
Dr. Legion True: One Fucked Mother
Dr. Herod (Herry) Edinsmaier: Legion’s husband/Sperm Source [“re: I am snide” backwards]
Mirzah Truemaier: Legion’s son
Zane Truemaier: Legion’s son
Jesse Truemaier: Legion’s son
AmTaham True: Legion’s father [Mahatma backwards]
Mehitable True: Legion’s mother [Me hit-able—i.e. she was abusive]
Ardys and Endys: Legion’s sisters [names backwards]
Sterling: Legion’s brother [her mother’s planned name of next son (who never came)]
Mi Sprision O'Revinnoco: Herry’s sister [misprision: concealing knowledge of treason/O'Revinnoco = O'Connivero backwards]
Juggern Aut Misein Edinsmaier: Legion’s father-in-law [juggernaut; aut = 0; misein = “to hate (misogyny)”]
Detanimod Edinsmaier: Legion’s mother-in-law [dominated backwards]
Ava Saffron True and Zebulon True: respectively, Legion's paternal grandmother and her husband, Legion's paternal grandfather
Rowland and Wyman Natures: respectively, Legion's most favored uncle and most favored male first cousin
Fannie Issicran McLive: fawning enabler of ex [narcissi(st) and Mc(Evil) backwards]
Mary Jane: daughter of Fannie Issicran McLive; stepsister of Zane, Jesse, and Mirzah
Legion’s Friends: Margaret, Mona, Yanira, Stormy, Lynda, László, Jane, Kincaid, Joseph, Sheryl, Abraham (Quaker elder), Frieda
Legion’s Best Friends: Ms Grace and Dr Lionel Portia and Rachel
Wende: = Legion's friend after divorce [committed suicide due to Custody Crisis]
Jim Cornball: Herry’s acquaintance from AA and realtor
Loser Lorn: Insurance agent referred by Cornball
Judge Harley Butcher: Family Court judge
Judge Sol Wacotler Seizor: Family Court judge
Judge Barry Crowrook: Appellate Court judge
Judge Pansy Shawshank: Appellate Court judge
Jazzy Jinx: Legion’s first Family Court lawyer
Carlotta Klutz: Legion’s second Family Court attorney
Shindy Scheisser: Herry’s lawyer [shindy = noisy; scheisser = German for shithead]
Li Zhang: Herry’s Aussie affair
Dr Freddie Goldstein & Ella: Herry’s colleague and wife
Mick: = Herry's acquaintance from high school; best man [not in Herry’s life after that as he had no true friends]
Varry Wussamai: Herry's AA sponsor (not a real friend) [I am a wuss backwards]
David Humes: nursing student; classmate of Legion's, y1968 - y1971, New York City
Edmund Silver: Legion's boyfriend pre-Herry
Braemore St: where Legion and her family lived, y1983 - y1986
Havencourt condominium: Legion's Ames apartment; after separation
Zephyr: tabby cat of Zane's, Mirzah's, Jesse's [pronounced “Zay – fear”]
Rex: Jesse’s pet Eastern Florida Kingsnake, female
Lady: Zane's pet Zebra Finch, female
Madonna: realtor
Larry Brouhaha: court-mandated marriage counselor
Judge Sol Wacotler Seizor: District Court judge on first two trials
Judge Harley Butcher: District Court judge for third trial
Dr. Shark: Herry’s residency supervisor who fired him
Carrie Canard: twice judge-mandated custody evaluator
Author: Dr. Blue, aka Ofherod, BSN, DVM, PhD = Commander Edinsmaier's Handmaid (Commander reiamsnidE's Handmaid)
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