Confessions of a Desert Custodian

A little ditty I wrote about paternal custody in 1990's Las Vegas...fun for the whole family, it was...


Confessions of a Desert Custodian


(I)

The mother of my child was once married to the drummer in my band. As they already shared custody of a child, and the band rehearsed at the drummer’s house, she and I would see one another from time to time. For some years, Son's Mother (SM for the remainder of this little vignette), had been in a checkered relationship with some joker and his kids, his drugs, his abuse and so on. We dated during a brief hiatus from this living situation of hers in the late summer of 1989. Drummer friend not particularly enthused as I recall; the band also went on hiatus. And this little lacuna along the axis of SM's life was to profoundly affect mine, altering its course entirely.

The guy with whom she lived, and with whom she would later continue to live, was both a biker and a mechanic, so we'll refer to him as BM - fitting enough initials for someone who proves his masculinity with the occasional shiner gracing his old lady's eye socket. Years later I would learn that it was he, and not my son's mother, who took my son to those doctor's appointments during the first few weeks of his life.

My drummer friend had informed me that SM was pregnant as we pulled into a gas station one November evening. He still had some contact with her, whereas I had none, nor the interest. Now she was back living with BM, and they were expecting a baby together. Upon hearing this news bulletin my heart truly sank - not at the prospect of having a child, but just bringing one into the world with her as the incubator (and yes, I had lost respect for her by now).

I actually did get to see my son once during his infancy, shortly after his birth at a self-serve car wash in North Las Vegas - the agreed upon meeting spot between his mother and myself, as she had to create phony errands in order to venture past the walls of the compound. He arrived with huge brown eyes and the odd gurgle; I showed up in a noisy Camaro with a couple of pink beads at the end of my braids. My son had that hyper-aware look that all newborns seem to possess, the continuous visage that seems to vacillate between what the fuck are you saying? and Oh, I KNOW you didn't just take me out of that womb...

I emphatically requested from SM that we get a test done to determine paternity, and she agreed, but it wasn't meant to be: she withdrew back into the morass of bikerdom decision making, convincing herself that it was BM Faceslapper who fathered that child.

Some time had passed, perhaps six full seasons (though "season" is somewhat of a misnomer in Vegas - if you're prone to napping in October you could miss autumn all together), and SM had resurfaced with a desire to see me. We met after I got off work late one night. Apparently our son looked a bit like his real father, and after a scant 18 months spent on verification she leaped into action to rectify this injustice. Later that week blood was drawn at $250 per pricking, and it was off to some lab in Michigan for DNA testing. Back then, during those frontier days of the masses getting genetic confirmation at the molecular level, all samples went to Michigan, and apparently by Pony Express: five weeks went by before results came back with their conclusiveness.

With family members appraised and live in girlfriend alerted, I grabbed a pushy lawyer (who ended up a disgraced judge) and obtained joint legal and physical custody immediately after the DNA results returned. It was April of 1992, and my son and I were awarded half of each week to get to know one another. He was just about two, and I was a little past uncomfortable. Into the great beyond we went.

(II)

Other than that brief dalliance lasting a couple of weeks, there was never any relationship between my son’s mother and myself or, during her pregnancy and the ensuing 18 months after our child's birth, any relationship between the three of us. No assisting before, during or after; no holding, nurturing, familiarizing with one another; and no trips to the doctor should my son fall ill (as he did). This lack of experience wounded me greatly, but little forays into self-pity were at best only mildly relevant; my hands were quite full with a toddler who greeted me every week with hysterical screaming at being removed from his mother’s clutch. And what became blindingly obvious all too quickly, beyond the nonexistent parental relationship that certainly didn’t improve after daddy took mommy to court, was the amount of neglect SM was imparting upon our son due to the way she conducted her own life. This was a touch beyond which skill sets should be emphasized, or a disagreement over bedtime; I’m referring to picking up your kid with the caked-on snot and diaper rash kind of neglect, that irritability that comes from 7-11 dining and lack of a cohesive living structure. I'd send him away healthy, and he'd always return with something that had to clear up before we could just be "normal" for a few days.

But the worst, the absolute worst, was getting the life back into those horribly dull eyes once my part of the week began, that product of near-zero intellectual stimulation. That was particularly difficult.

The emotional anguish of instant parenthood juxtaposed with meeting the immediate needs of an astonishingly prolific little poop factory became almost topical compared to the concerns mentioned above, and then seasoned with omnipresent guilt knowing that his mother was not above couch surfing as a way of life, with child, in an environment that occasionally included copious amounts of detrimental substances both illegal and store-bought, and just plain old and lethal secondhand smoke by the carton.

And while it's sometimes difficult to recall without photographs, there were countless good moments interspersed throughout all this: the birthdays with his "new" family members, the family pets chasing him around, putting sentences together for the first time, teaching him to swim and walk and locomote a little tricycle - we had all the "stuff" you might expect, right up until the dreaded ending, that transplanting of someone so delicate for a day or two or, sometimes, even three. And then a lot of sadness and confusion would creep in.

To say that all this kept me up nights would imply that I actually slept during this time in my life. My son did nothing to deserve this neglect, so how could I possibly countenance such behavior? What the hell was wrong with me?

Three years would pass in this state of flux.

(III)

I did keep a journal documenting each visit, its length and my son’s state of well-being, or lack thereof, upon return. It seemed necessary at the time. There were only a handful of occasions that his mother and I actually adhered to the exact wording by the court, as he usually spent a week with a me, sometimes two, and she would see him for 24 to 48 hours at a time. This tempered the little slices of agony I felt in my gut, knowing that this can't go on indefinitely yet allowing it to with bullshit rationalizations about a child interacting with its mother and the like.
The gory details surrounding these 150-plus weeks are lengthy and probably best left highly repressed; for every mildly humorous recollection available (such as picking him up once near a mall and, disgusted, just marching into the nearest Boys Department, placing a card near the register and requesting a shirt, pants and underclothes be brought in behind me after I delouse him in the changing room and toss his current linen), there is always some nightmare just waiting to take its place (such as the middle of the night hand off with my son, cold and frightened and crying his eyes out as I take him from mommy because mommy had to leave her residence when she noticed roommates shooting speed into their veins, and having an infant around needles full of methamphetamine struck her as inappropriate).

With a few exceptions, the neglect was generally just under the radar by CPS standards. But this was my entire radar, my only radar, and at times quite harrowing. What I was (and was not) made of had become graphically apparent as the months became years: the continuous feelings of anger and self-loathing, often bonded by a heavy dose of fear; the image of seeing my son see me through a sheet of Plexiglas went from an initially shocking thought to a tired refrain, the product of desperate and selfish thinking over and over. It was an emasculation played out in long form, the occasional assertiveness when I just said "no more" notwithstanding. But the second chances kept coming, and they piled up within me.

(IV)

One simple, pleasant memory from this time was that my son liked to catch things with his head. For some reason I remember this about whenever we played ball. Yes, he was only four, and later on we did notice he needed glasses, but he was nonetheless quite brave. And most durable. To the untrained eye he probably resembled the most phenomenal klutz in public. At times you could even see the gushes of sympathy on people's faces as something hit him, or as he hit the Earth in a variety of ways.

He always got back up, and this was very inspirational for me at the time.

During the summer of 1995 SM rarely saw her son. I had procured an adequate residence in one of Vegas’ countless suburban outcroppings with the word "ranch" somewhere in the title. She had shown little interest in making any effort to contact our child, which was fine - he was about to start kindergarten in a nice, new school, come home to his own room in a nice, new house, etc. Stocked up at this moment in time were the little things that tend to balloon in significance once removed, particularly in the innate way a small child absorbs the world. I was as content as possible, all things considered. And my son was happy, and healthy.
And so this charade went on, each day with no contact a treat, each phone call that wasn't her a tense-and-release joy. I was not being proactive, and certainly not seeking confrontation - merely exhibiting that base and feeble human desire of hoping that something unpleasant would just stay gone.

Of course it was naive.

(V)

When the fingers of my right hand had tightened their grip around her throat it was before I even realized what was happening, and for the briefest of nanoseconds a different reality was present; even her cry to some roommate to call the cops meant nothing. She was moving backward as I moved forward, and only when my eyes lowered toward the yelling coming from her chest did I adjust, and, seeing my son clasped in her arms between us, I immediately ceased and sat down. I was thankful then, as I am today, that whatever snapped in me only sent the message "grab her neck" and not "remove her windpipe." To her credit, my son’s mother never let him go, though this is what initiated the incident in the first place: she contacted me and asked for a visit on the day my son was to fly to Phoenix and visit his grandmother just before the school year commenced, and I agreed to drive across town to let him say hello before proceeding to the airport. After having him close by for a few mi nutes she announced that our child would now be staying with her in this most recent hovel; that welfare, ADC and the like could assist, and that he would be going to a school nearby. I disagreed and grabbed his arm to leave, whereupon she swooped him up against her torso. Then my eyes got cold.

The cops did what cops do: the child was led off into another room with one officer (a female, sympathetic, and I believe brandishing a teddy bear) while the other got the story from the adults. Another squad car arrived. With regret, though hardly apologetic, I told the truth when questioned, and about a half hour later left with my son. He made the plane to Arizona and I juggled dark thoughts while giving silent thanks. In roughly the same amount of time it took to create him some six years prior, I had almost eclipsed his chances completely, and my own, for even a semblance of normality with regard to his upbringing.

I got a new lawyer and denied SM the right to see her child, though possessing no legal authority to do so. I wasn’t invisible, but I was through being considerate. The particulars were to require some time before an official piece of paper stated what I was now already enforcing, so we went on vacation, my son and I, to the Pacific Northwest. The time away was memorable, so much so that we decided to give it a name: it is now known as “First Grade in Seattle.”

(VI)

In February of 1997, I flew into Las Vegas and met my attorney at the Clark County Family Court. I walked out with full custody of my son a short time later.

In November of 2003, my son’s mother resurfaced, repentant and healthy. They see each other on holidays, schedules permitting.

And the trick to fatherhood? Well, that's a question best answered by someone completely delusional. But I can furnish you with this one little clue: just show the fuck up. Resist that primordial urge to pack up the remainder of your sperm and move on. And expect to be frustrated most of the time, with only the briefest morsels of light along the way. That kid doesn't have any extra time in his day to sympathize with the enormity of your problems, or to understand that you finally drank yourself to sleep a couple hours ago because every time you go to work it's Groundhog Day at The Island Of Dr. Moreau...so just drag your hungover butt into the kitchen, find something more nutritious than a Pop Tart and get him to school no later than thirty minutes after the first bell rings. And, on those rarest of occasions when he feels like actually confiding in you, get all the crap out of your own life for a few minutes and pay attention.

Why? Because it's part of the glue that binds us, our ability to listen.

Plus, years later when that same child morphs into Darwin's Missing Link right before your very eyes (extra pimples and hold the manners), you'll be able to pause and reflect on "the good old days."


Copyright 2007 Jexican Publishing. All Rights Reserved.