We used to call the house we shared with our stepfather "The Brunswick
Club."
We moved into this two story barn looking house ( with the upstairs never
completed and just unfinished framing and exposed open pipes and holes in
the ceiling ) a couple of days after our mother and stepfather married on
Dec 20th, 1960.
Two nights later the brothers and I and our mother were unceremoniously
woken up and kicked out of this house at 2 in the morning by a raging
drunk and threatening red-eyed Ted. "This is "my" house...you
bastards." After Ted passed out we all snuck back in later that morning
and kind of just laid in our beds waiting, listening for Ted to get up and
go to work. But what a quick, ominous and nerve awakening shock that was.
The name "The Brunswick Club" came about like this. Years ago there were
many bowling alleys in America. Everyone did it occassionally. Now they
have kind of died out. The largest company that manufactured bowling balls
and pins was famously called the " Brunswick Company"
At some point in the brutal battles with Ted ( our Frankenstein-like
stepfather ) one of the brothers mentioned that he looked just like an
enormous bowling pin.
He had a small bald head and a long sloping neck ( like a turtles head and
neck sticking out of it's shell ) and a very large belly that protruded as
much as a pregnant women in her final term ( booze belly ). From a
distance he did look just like a bowling pin. Thus arose the name
"Brunswick"....like a Brunswick bowling pin.
The name 'Brunswick Club" came about after dozens of high school kids used
to park down near our house at night to watch the battles. They would tell
each other, I'll meet you at the "Brunswick" club.
And Ted wouldn't disappoint. Maybe half the time there would be violent
action. This was better than the local movie theaters and hang outs. I
think guys would actually bring snacks and their girl friends. To tell you
the truth, I was ashamed to be a part of it all. But I didn't have time or
a choice to feel sorry for myself. I was stuck there and I had to survive.
For a guy with such an odd build, Brunswick/Frankenstein Ted could
move...fast!
My brothers were incredibly athletic, incredible...but pregant looking Ted
could catch them drunk and in wing tip shoes!
Ted was a challenge. Mentally he was sometimes like a lobotomized
creature, yes like Frankenstein, but sometimes he was very clever, cunning
and sneaky. You had to develop the skills of a special forces navy seal to
be ready for him. We would set up warning systems, booby traps and have
escape plans. We often jumped out of the second floor windows to get away
from his charges. We knew which bushes to hide in, what areas of the
garage to sleep in and still be able to hear and see him coming, things
like this.
And Ted could fight. And I am certain he liked to fight. Freakishly long,
strong arms, quick hands...could take a punch like you wouldn't believe.
And amazingly, getting hit just seemed to make Ted angrier and more
invigorated! Guess this was because he was Irish.
I was just a kid when all this began but even I had to learn the rules of
battle and survival. I once pounded many nails into the sides of our front
yard gate and strung rubber bands from my paper route very tightly from
nails on one side to the nails on the other side so that when Ted chased
me out of the yard I would jump the fence and he would go through the gate
and get stung by all my taut rubber bands that he pulled off the nails as
he came for me. Zing..zap, twang, twap...it was all I could come up with
at the time.
Occasionally even these other high school kids would get involved. One
time Ted came after me during one of these brawls and an older teenage
friend "Carlin Erickson" watching all of this nearby yelled at Ted " Hey
CONLEY, why don't you back off the kid."
Big mistake...Ted caught Carlin right across the head with a Coors bottle
and this fight really got into gear with everyone throwing punches and
wrestling bodies spilling out into the yard. With colorful lights ablazing the
cops finally swooshed in and told everyone to go home and they stayed for
awhile to make sure everyone did as they were told. But it was an prolific
event. An epic Spartacus verus Crassus battle.
The next day it was all the other kids wanted to talk about at school. I
became a sick kind of hero. I actually hated this for many reasons but for
one it actually made my chances for finding a "nice" girl friend almost
impossible. The "nice" girls were actually afraid to get involved with me.
And I didn't feel like a hero. I would have traded places in a minute with
some kid from a normal family. Those battles scared the hell out of me and
made me so tense that I could never ever unwind, ever!
When Ted was on a rampage he would often chase my mother and us out of
the house as late as 12 to 2 A.M. in the morning. And sometimes he would
barge out of the house to do further damage or to drag our mother back
in.
We lived in a foggy coast line forested area. The local deer would often
roam right into our large yard. One night after chasing us all out into
the darkened night and then crashing through the back door a few minutes
later to drag our mother back in the house Ted started chasing a deer
thinking it was our mother Trudy. We were hiding in bushes and against
the fence watching him chase this deer and all of a sudden the deer
jumped and cleared this five foot high fence in one magnificent leap!
Drunken Ted stopped in his tracks, raised up and said to no one..."That
sure as hell isn't Trude!" and sheepishly walked back in the house. One
of the few times we could all laugh in the shivering cold.
Ted had a phobia about flies. One morning after a furious bloody battle
the night before one of my brothers went around collecting a jar full of
these and held them there by screwing on a lid. When he had at least a
dozen or more flies, my brother stealthily opened a hang-over-sleeping
Ted's bedroom door and let out the entire jar of these worked up flies!
Before too long you could hear Ted's frantic yelling all around the
house, "TRUDY!... TRUDY!AAGGHHH, come and get these GOD DAMN FLIES out
of my room!" Our fear-conditioned mother obediently rushed in and
battled and squashed all these flies with her trusty, often demanded and
used fly swatter as Ted lay angrily cussing with his blankets pulled up
almost covering his face.
Aahhhh, sweet vengance !
Sometimes trouble seeking and instigating teenage acquaintances we
knew would call and order pizza delivered to our house at night while
Ted was outrageously drunk and crazy and yelling and fighting. This is
before pizza restaurants had that telephone retrieval system to prevent
false orders like they have now.
The street at the front of our house was just a few steps to an enormous
living room exposing front window with curtains that always stayed open,
even while Ted was yelling and cussing or even physically threatening or
assaulting my mother or us in full view of who ever happened to be
walking by.
When these pizza guys were called it was usually in the middle of one of
these horrific exhibitions. Upon arriving at our house with their extra
large pizzas in hand ( I actually watched this happen a couple of times
) these delivery guys would cheerfully and expectantly march up the
little walk way toward the front door and right by the big front
window.
And then, they would suddenly halt upon hearing the screams and seeing
this frighteningly mad, red, bulging, crazy eyed face of this
great Goliath cursing and flailing behind this movie screen sized
picture window ! After watching this horror show for a few seconds they
would freeze and reel in croutching defensive fear and shock and quickly
bound back wild eyed to their cars and burn rubber in their attempts to
get out of there as fast as they could.
Incredibly, a few delivery guys would somehow defy human logic and would
walk right by this scary surreal scene and start knocking on front door
with it's loud metal knocker as if they saw this stuff all the time!
This would stop the scream fests...and Ted would lurch menacingly and
angrily to the front door as if someone were rudely interrupting his
only form of perversely stimulating exercise and entertainment.
The time I witnessed one of these actual door knocking pizza deliveries
from the upstairs window directly above, Ted stomped to the front door
after hearing this and then ripped it open with practically enough force
to tear off it's hinges and in an enraged grizzly bear stance and rage,
confronted the poor "OMG...I'm seeing-a-monster" looking pizza delivery
man with a booming, bourbon reeking roar ..."WHAT THE HELL DO YOU WANT
???"
And then, without even letting this stuttering, stammering fellow say a
word, Ted maniacally slammed the door shut in his shaken face...KABOOM...and
simply went right back to his magnificently mad rampaging! This stunned
pizza guy walked very warily back to his car glancing back nervously
every second or two as if to confirm in his mind that what he just
witnessed was real !
This home of Ted's is still standing, but I think that even today there
is a scary energy emanating from it. People walking their dogs seem to
stare at this house as if something is telling them that strange and
powerful and unbelievable things once happened there. And little do they
( and their barking, anxious-to-get-away-from-there dogs ) know how
right their ominous instincts are.
At some point in the late sixties one of the brothers coaxed Ted into at
least trying a marijuana joint, reassuring Ted that doing so would make
listening to his nightly assortment of old Jazz 33's an even better
experience. Ted did so, and was immediately hooked. His music "did"
sound much better. And wonderously, this seemed to make him feel much
more relaxed and affordably different than quarts of Johnny Walker Red
and or Stolychnya Vodka. He actually found himself laughing at peoples
everyday comments instead of angrily pouncing on them because he sensed
some communist liberal slant or minority lovin sentiment. Within a few
weeks an actual miracle was taking place. We thought about calling in
the catholic church to confirm this. Ted, one of the meanest ,most
angry, fighting, violent persons you could ever know...was becoming a
nice guy!
He actually thanked his wife with a romantic smile for setting his
little dinner table and tray for him every night in front of his lounge
chair. His taste for booze had dwindled to nothing, which triggered many
calls from the frantic local liquor store owner asking if Ted was
mentally and physically okay. A good part of this liquor stores revenues
were drying up?
Ted asked me to go to the store or him once during this time and
actually thanked me when I returned and told me to keep the nickle in
change! Ted was "truly" a changed man. I saw this with my own two eyes
as many others did also. Thank God for marijuana we all thought. My
mother used to get on her knees and say her blessings.
Ted wasn't too good at rolling joints. They came out all mishapened and
they were the size of cigars...but he would just happily laugh at
himself while he made these and even humm or whistle in anticipation of
his huge long drawn out puffs on these. For the first time in
everyone's life, you could walk into Ted's house and not tense up. And
in fact if when was smoking he was pretty good company. The music
played, he sang along, he offered you a bite to eat. I think he even
contemplated voting Democrat for the first time in his life!
Ahhh, but good things almost always sadly come to an end too quickly.
After about a year of this bliss, Ted's doctor diagnosed him with
chronic Bronchitis and told him he had to stop smoking his marijuana.
You cannot imagine the gloom and dispair that we all felt with these
doctors orders. Ted immediately started drinking again. He just flat out
needed "something" to deal with or block out or soothe his savage beast
demons that racked his soul. And since the mother-love-calming marijuana
was out, the devil welcoming Cutty Sark and Gilbey's and Johnny Walker
Red came back in. The liquor store owner had almost gone out of business
before his prayers were answered again with Ted's renewed patronage and
business.
With my families prayerful blessing ( and even Ted's ) I came up
with one last desperate idea to try to stop the old Ted from returning
while at the same time honoring Ted's doctors medical demands. I took
Teds lid of weed and bought a Betty Crocker Brownie mix and went back to
my apartment and baked up a nice big batch of the most delicious
smelling brownies. I must have used an entire pound of Ted's stash in
this mix. The baking fragrance alone got me singing and laughing. When
my great brown creation came out and cooled a little. I cut this up into
24 small squares.
Now, I was never much of a marijuana smoker, nor had I ever eaten any of
these type brownies. But without even thinking I just grabbed one
little square after another and started downing these as quick as I
could liquidize them enough in my mouth to swallow them. By the time I
got these driven over to the greatly anticipating Ted's house, I had
blindly consumed 14 if these!
I was in an unstoppable fit of laughter as I came in the back door with
Ted's new miracle medicine food. Upon seeing me in this doubled over
state of hysterical laughter while I was trying to explain to Ted to
just start eating these, he immediately grabbed a handful and started
shoving them into his salivating mouth. I think I even recall seeing
chocolate drool spilling out as he was maniacally mushing these about in
a trance-like state ecstatic expectation. Ted wasn't eating these with
manners in mind.
I ended up in the hospital a few hours later after hallucinating and
blacking out. Ted went through the same stage but his tolerance level
was higher than mine and I had eaten more than him so I think that after
the laughing stage Ted just passed out for a day or two. But this grand
effort just didn't have the desperately desired results and was
embarrassingly put out of the loop of new ideas in dealing with Ted's
return to devilsville. But, Ted, never was too bad after this anyway.
One main reason was he soon got colon cancer and this much of the fight
out of him. He always seemed nicer than he was before all of this. His
ability to drink just wasn't what it used to be. He suffered greatly
until the end. I felt feelings about Ted during this time that I thought
I never would. Together with the other feelings I had had about this
Jekyll and Hyde, they have had a very confusing effect on my
recollections about him as a person and the frightening and exhuasting
experience with him. I think this is one of the compelling things
helping me to want to write about this aspect of the entire story of the
childhood of the 7 sons.
There is much more. There is some tragic stuff, some sadistic stuff,
some courageous stuff. But it shifts from time frame to time frame but I
think you can get a feel for what I am trying to convey and capture
here. And that this truly was a unique experience. Please let me know if
you may be interested further in my goal of seeking some representation
for my anticipated story. Reply to:
JoeBauer6@aol.com
Reciting Shakespeare, Defining Moment:
Back in the 1966/67 school year our sophomore English class teacher Mr.
O'Shaunessey got tired of me and my ruffian/shared-rough-childhood
friends not getting serious about reading parts in our class recital of
" A Midsummer Nights Dream".
He eventually stopped the reading and ordered us all out when we
continually disrupted the class with our reluctance to read and snickers
. These were my hang-around buddies...and they did get up and simply
walked out. I remained seated. A couple of them turned and looked at me
as if to say "hey, what are you waiting for?" I looked back at them...
unable to say anything.
Up to now these guys were my companions. We somehow found each other
after finding out we all came from abusive homes. To mask our
insecurities and anger and shame of our shared humiliating home lives, I
believe my fellow fearful friends and I assumed this fake, collar
up, tough guy image at school to convince ourselves and others that not
only could we take it but that we were also worthy of some kind of
respect, even if it was just an assumed fear type: "Oh, there goes those
tough guys." "Watch Out!"
This beat the real and true and unattractive image we feared most ..."
Oh, there goes those scared, sad and screwed up kids from those screwed
up families."
So reading the part of Puck was not easy for me and my buddies who were
trying so hard to keep up this defensive "I'm a bad guy" image.
However, it was at this "get out" moment ( a very unexpected and sound
stopping moment) that something outwardly silent yet inwardly volcanic
just "erupted" out of my troubled heart, mind and soul.
At that fateful moment without understanding why, I just "refused" to
get up out of that seat. Something deep in inside of me was stopping me
from walking away and "not" being part of something that I just
unknowingly knew and felt was important and beautiful and gentle and
touching....and desired. Why I, the angry suffering tough guy, hungered
for and felt that reading Shakespeare was this important... more than my
loyalty to my suffering band of brothers...I didn't know...but something
strong and unexplainable just compelled me to stay in that seat... to
stay in that seat and fight to shove my great burning, barren and lonely
life, anger and dispair about everything far far away from me. It was
strange, scary and confusing all at the same time and I think I may have
been a little sweaty and nauseous. But I stayed in that seat.
My English teacher Mr. O'Shaunessey saw me remain in my seat and after
an eye brow raised pause of surprise and in front of the rest of the
class said something like.." Mr. Bauer...Your friends have left...why
haven't you?" With my eyes looking down and my ego confused and my anger
being gripped I mumbled something like " I don't know."
Mr. O'Shaunessey then said to me sternly ( as if to call my perhaps
class attention seeking game or bluff ) " Mr. Bauer..if you remain in
that seat...I am going to call on you more often than anyone in this
class to read...I am going to call on you more often to comment on what
we are reading...and I am going to have you be the first to give your
oral reports on the books I ask you to read." " Are you sure you want to
stay?" I nodded slowly... yes.
I could not release and "scream" the real answer I often wanted to give
in a roar like a wounded lion face to face at teachers and Mr.
O'Shaunessey who had chastised me about my bad attitude and poor work
habits...that " How the hell would you like to live the kind of life and
nights that I am living!" answer! How the hell would "you" like to try
to get into your school kid studys and homework and feel like reading
Shakespeare the next day after countless terrifying nights where you
slept maybe 3 shakey hours in absolute, soul exhausting fear in a
see-your-breath cold garage while your mother and brothers and you was
being threatened and belittled and beaten in your house..and the only
reason your shameful cowardly ass wasn't bruised up itself was because
you could run fast and hide in a garage!
Answer that Mr.O'Shaunessey!
You Bastard! You Bastard! You dare ask me why I might not want to do my
homework or read Shakespeare?
And yet...I did. I did want to read Shakespeare. And you have no
idea..you have absolutely NO FUCKING IDEA...how much I truly wanted to
read romantic and fun and gentle and mind stimulating and relaxing
Shakespeare...so much more than to having to wallow and drain
in exhausting fear and back tensing dread e-v-e-r-y fucking day about
each next horrific humiliating night! I would count the hours and dwell
on and have to gear up my mind and body defense mechanisms for each new
nights madness of boozy often bloody battles and loud and embarrassing
cussing chaos. And these nerve wracking nightmares could go on until the
early hours of the morning. That's where my energy and motivation went
instead of homework and enthusiastic days at school teachers. That's
where it went.
Yes teachers, you have no idea I am living in this barren, shameful and
draining hell. But how could you? How could you? And I am so tired...of
expecting you to know...or to care that I do. And I know now that it
just ain't going to happen. And it never did.
I am going to read Shakespeare...yes, yes I am.
Because I want to...and I am good enough... and I am smart enough...and
I am appreciative enough. And nobody ...no terror, no monster, no
anger, no fear, no sadness about everything or even you Mr. O'Shaunessey is
going to stop me from reading Shakespeare!
I lost my tough friends that day... really, I did. They never hung
around me again after that day. And the rest of my time in that class
was one of the most challenging things I ever had to go through in the
middle of surviving that maddening domestic violence, spirit busting
war/hell I was living through at home.
I had to start going to our local library at night and reading the books
Mr. O'Shaunessey assigned us. I had to be ready with my lines the next
day; actually read them and recite them to myself so that they came out
quickly and in pace with the story to keep it flowing and not make me
look like an illiterate fool in class. I had to somehow block out my
obsessive thoughts about what was probably happening to my mother and
brothers at the hands of my drunk and getting meaner-by-the -hour
stepfather while I was in this uncomfortably quiet and seemingly less
important world of calm book readers and spinster Librarians.
I had to prepare at least a rough outline for my scheduled oral reports
and face the almost as great insecurity I had of knowing that I would
have to get up in front of the class with a horribly broken out, acne
scarred face that crushed my spirits and self esteem at times as much as
my violent home life. I think the stress, lack of sleep and bad eat-in-a
rush diet of sandwiches and cookies and liquor store snacks was greatly
to blame for this scourge of teenage acne. And boys couldn't cover this
up with make up as most girls could. My God, how did I ever get through
that as well?
But I did those oral reports, I read those books, I kept up my parts in
Shakespeare...I even gave a little flair to my speaking roles and smiled
once or twice at my bravery and hamming.
And for the first time in a long time...I got an "A" in a class. When I
got that report card, I cried to myself...because I knew how hard it was
to achieve.
But no pats on the back, no "good job son." but that was alright...I
knew. I knew I had done something special. I only wished I had had a
soft, gentle girlfriend to have shared this achievement with.
And you know what? A couple of years later when I was a senior. Mr.
O'Shaunessey's daughter who was two or three years younger than I came
up to me in one of our school hallways and said"are you Joe Bauer?"
After telling her I was, she went on to tell me about how her father
would occasionally mention this one student in all of his classes that
effected him enough to tell this following story:
A story of how he surprisingly watched a young man give up his friends
and his tough guy persona...in one moment...to become a real
contributing and thoughtful student in his class. And of how he was
tougher on this student and how he was inspired to give this student an
"A" for his hard work and determination."
"What ever he told his family...I knew it must have been special and
memorable enough for Mr. O'Shaunessey's daughter Katie to remember it
and feel it was worth coming up to me and tell me about him doing so.
That was sure an inspiring, feel-good day for me...to finally know that
someone other than myself had actually recognized and appreciated that
unbelievably lonely, gut wrenching, bravery searching effort I was
making to redefine my life and being despite everything that was
happening all around me.
