So now my Dad is gone and my Mother is set for her vendetta against everything sane and I set that I will be OK and so will my little sister. So now my Mother has regained the confidence of her youth and is entering the dating scene. Now since sarcasm doesn't work well in the written form; my Mother never left the dating scene whilst she was with Dad if you catch my drift.
So before I go further I thought it might interest you to know that I had to take a moment to write down all their names, the men I mean.
Now the first man I remember was the Cowboy (I don't really remember his name) he worked on the cattle stations so he made infrequent visits to see my Mother and wasn't notable of character. When I think of him I remember that he told me one day when I was sitting on my trampoline that you could sleep on it and its better than a real bed if you have company. I remember that my Mother agreed, now at the time I new they were being crass but I didn't know the particulars. So from then on her became the Cowboy who slept on trampolines with girls.
It concerns me at such a young age I was already understanding sexual connotation and applying it in my own fashion, but I guess the snowball has to start somewhere.
During my Mothers period of dating the Cowboy my Mother went through a phase of playing country music in the car but she only had one tape so she played it over and over. She took us on a lot of long drives, mostly to rural places to go to outback pubs or barbecues, not necessarily with people we new just friends of the Cowboys. One particular afternoon she took us on a long drive to some cattle station, this trip developed my hate for the songs "Rhinestone Cowboy" and "You gotta know when to hold 'em" they were both on that tape even to this day those songs irritate me, the tape went out the window that trip, whoops!
So we arrive at this cattle station and we were told to go play in the yard and were given apples to feed a young horse. I remember we weren't really allowed inside the house but there was a nice lady inside. This was where the Cowboy lived/worked. But this wasn't where my sister Kory and I would be staying the night. My Mother stayed with the Cowboy in the house and Kory and I were taken to a kind of dormitory, you know the ones for jackaroos and shearers. Now let me give you a mental picture of what that looks like; its basically a tin shed with wire frame beds and those old mattresses you see in prison films with the blue stripes on them. I sincerely wish I was kidding when I said that this is where she left us to sleep while she screwed the Cowboy back at the house but alas. We didn't have sheets on the beds so I found it hard to sleep and I was worried the multitudes of spiders were going to get on me as soon as I did. I was awake and wondering around at dawn and a man working in the shed next door told me I would make a good worker being up so early, but truth be told I didn't want to hang out with the spiders.
When I think about it I really was in a state of wonderment for most of this relationship. This man wasn't like my Dad, he wasn't interesting to talk to, he didn't want us around and never really acknowledged us. But I guess that didn't really matter all that much, he didn't last long.
Then came Trimsy, this man was a complete idiot. I am not saying this will any real malice but this man was a few sandwiches short of a picnic. I think he was very much into drugs, no one could be that unhinged normally. He had wild unbrushed long hair and I don't think he worked. I have no idea what my Mother saw in him, I knew my Mother was clever and Trimsy wasn't. He was really the first person I realized I could manipulate.
Even as a child I knew I was different and saw things differently than people around me. I didn't think of this as being smarter than other people I just thought that I saw things different so I could reach different conclusions. All though school I would go to the teachers in grades above me and ask for homework from the higher grades, I'd take it home and return it before class the next day. When I reached high school I would borrow the text books for higher grades and read them at home, doing the exercises inside them to amuse myself. I was a straight A student for most of my schooling, perhaps if my parents had've been in a better position that would've lead to something.
So back to Trimsy, I think the incident where I learned I could manipulate him was when my Mother was no where to be found and we needed milk. Now it wasn't uncommon for my sister and I to go to the corner shop alone and get lollies and groceries to get us out of the house. So my Mother being absent I asked Trimsy for money to go to the shop, he couldn't tell the difference between the coins he was giving us. I clearly remember that he gave us coins based on their size (for those of you not from Australia our smaller coins for the majority have the higher value) he divided them out as "here some big ones for you because you're a big girl and here are some small one's for you because you're only little". I then spent the walk to the shops convincing Kory that more coins means more money so I could swap my 20 cent pieces for her hand full of $2 coins.
I didn't really have any respect for Trimsy after that and realistically I lost the automatic respect for adults that all children have at that age. I started becoming aware of adult behaviors and assessing how they acted towards each other and what that meant in social situations. Even now as an adult I analyse people on their actions rather than their face value personality. I started to view my Mother and her men with a critical eye rather than the blind acceptance of a child.
Substitute Girl Card #6 The Anthropologist
This change as a child saved me from being a hate-filled adult that so many abuse victims are. Still to this day I judge someone on how they act, not their reputation or impression. And I act accordingly.
