American Dreams

          It was a long drive back home, with me in a supine position, in the back of the car, with pillows and a blanket.  There was also a bucket for me to use, you can imagine what for.  George had to stop the car when I needed to use this as it was very difficult, not to mention painful, for me to position myself.  I’m glad I only needed to use this twice, apart from being painful, it was also very demeaning.

          Chantel and Serena were so pleased to have me home again, and were quick to tell me how there was never anything to eat in the house, and how the phone had been disconnected, because George hadn’t paid the bill.  He hardly ever came home, and when he did, he was very drunk, and they were afraid of him.  He spent all his time with Rosemary, in bars, and half the time he wasn’t going to work.

          It was just a few weeks before Christmas 1980 now, and things looked pretty bleak.  I was feeling very depressed with the whole situation.  One night George came home drunk, with a hand gun.  The girls were terrified, as he said he was going to kill us all!  They ran into Serena’s bedroom, as I sat on the couch with a gun at my head for hours, trying to talk to him calmly, and agreeing with everything he was saying, although none of it made any sense.  That must have been one of the longest nights I have ever spent, not knowing if I would ever see another day.  No-one, unless they have been in this situation, can ever begin to understand the feelings of terror and utter desperation that went through my mind.  My girls were sure they would never see me alive again, and I thought I would never see them again.  This was one hell of a night, and one that will live in my memory for the rest of my life. 

          I was back on nerve pills, as well as pain pills, not to mention pills to help me sleep.  Chantel had moved in with her boyfriend, as she couldn’t take her father’s constant threat that he was going to kill her.  She would come over to the house nearly every day to see me though.  Before Chantel left, Serena had her girl friend staying at the house on a near permanent basis.  Dee Dee’s mother worked as a go-go dancer in South Bend, Indiana, and her grandmother more or less was in charge of her.  As her grandmother spent most of her time in the local bar just across the road, Dee Dee was glad to be staying with Serena and I.  I had known her mother since she was sixteen, and she had a very wild reputation.  Dee Dee never knew who her father was, and it didn’t seem to bother her.

          On New Year’s Eve, I was lying on Serena’s bed, when George came into the room, put his face close to mine, and announced with such venom in his voice that he loved to dance and he was going to the Bungalow, (a local bar) with Rosemary to have a good time and didn’t want to be around me and I could go to Hell as far as he was concerned.  After that little episode I felt I had to get some sleep, I needed to forget all this pain, mental and physical.  I was exhausted.  I took a few sleeping pills, and the last thing I remember was the radio playing The Winner Takes it All by Abba.  This had become my favourite song in the past few weeks, as it made me feel that one day I would be well again, and out of the terrible mess that was now all that was left of my marriage.

          The next thing I knew, I was being lifted out of bed, onto a stretcher, with people making me talk, when all I wanted was to sleep.  I was being bundled into an ambulance, all the while questions, they just never stopped.  Why wouldn’t these people leave me alone, and let me get some sleep?  Didn’t they know how tired I was?