It was such an alien experience having a family who enjoyed being together. We sat around the dinner table many a winter night after the girls cooked dinner, telling stories and jokes, and sometimes even playing board games. One of the ironies of the times that I lived with my mother, stepfather, brother, and sister was that I was given board games as gifts pretty much every Christmas, but as a family of five, we very seldom played any of them. My mother and stepfather didn’t want to play The Six Million Dollar Man board game, for example, and my brother and sister were too young to understand how to play. They were six and seven years younger than I was, respectively. When I was eleven, they were five and four. So the game sat stacked on the top shelf of my closet, unplayed, with all the other board games I had received. But now, my step-sisters were five years and four years older than I was, and they humored me by playing games at the table, no matter how bad the games were. And some of them were terrible.
Six Million Dollar Man board game. It is terrible.
It was fascinating for me to learn from them. I had just turned 12 and they were already in high school. Their vocabularies were much more, um, colorful than mine. I learned lots of new words while sitting at the table. It felt wonderful to be included, joyous to be part of a family who seemed to care about each other; until one night, that all changed. We were playing Po-Ke-No, a game I had received when I was in third grade. It was a combination of poker and bingo. I thought it was a lot of fun, and we were having our usual banter at the table, when Barb, the younger of the two step-sisters mentioned that I had a half-sister.
I was puzzled. “What do you mean, ‘half-sister’? Wendy is my sister,” I said. “She was born before my mom and dad were divorced.” Barb insisted that Wendy wasn’t my dad’s child, but rather belonged to my stepfather. Suddenly, my whole sense of family was turned on its ear. I started to get angry. “No, she’s not! Stop lying!” I got up from the table and slammed my hand down on it. There was no way my sister belonged to the man who beat me every day. My dad heard the commotion and came in to ask what was wrong. I was in tears. “Barb says that Wendy is only my half-sister!”
My dad looked like he had seen a ghost. He ushered me into the living room space, just ten feet away from the table, but I caught the look he shot back at Barb, and it wasn’t a good one. He sat me down in front of the fireplace and sat across from me on a footstool. He explained that it was true, that Wendy was Steve’s child. I questioned how that could be, and he had to do a little explaining because at that time, I didn’t know where babies came from, at all. When he explained that mom and Steve had been together before he and my mom were divorced, and it was why we went to live with Steve afterward, it suddenly made sense why Wendy never came with Jeff and me to visit him. Mom had always said it was because she was too young, but Jeff was only a year older than she was, so that never made sense. I asked him if I could ask more questions about it, and he said yes.
I asked my dad why, then, had he paid child support for her for so many years. In the times that I saw my dad in the previous five years, complaining about child support was one of his common themes of conversation. Nothing makes you feel valued like hearing that your dad resents paying $50 a month for each of his children. He told me that since she was born before the divorce was final, she was listed as his child on her birth certificate. They had done a paternity test, but my dad and Steve had the same blood type, so there was no way to determine that she wasn’t actually my dad’s child, and that my mom wanted to “stick it to him,” so she claimed that Wendy was my dad’s child in the divorce proceedings.
Suddenly, pieces of this puzzle were falling into place. I remembered my grandpa calling my mother “Jezebel” when I was six, and my grandmother shushing him in terror after noticing that I was in the room at the time. But I also remembered that we would go to visit Steve and his wife and kids, and that while mom and Steve slept in one room, my dad and Steve’s wife slept in another. Again, I didn’t know where babies came from when that whole Jerry Springer show was happening, but now I knew that Mom wasn’t the only one cheating.
Dad told me that later on, they had made a deal with him that Steve would adopt Wendy so that my dad could stop paying child support for her, but only if they got to take Jeff as a deduction on their taxes. My dad agreed to it, but he was not happy about it, being extorted into doing what was right in the first place. I didn’t even know that Wendy’s last name had changed because she hadn’t started school yet. It never appeared on any documents I ever saw. After about an hour of this, I was still upset, but calm enough to apologize to Barb for calling her a liar and slamming the table. She said she was sorry for telling me, but she also said she didn’t know that it was a secret. I said that I understood, but suddenly, the idea of the close-knit family was tainted. I didn’t believe her.
When I was nine years old, I joined the Cub Scouts, and one of the things the Cub Scouts was known for back at that time was teaching young boys to be responsible with pocket knives. I have carried a pocket knife ever since. I got my first one when I was nine and I carried it through elementary school, junior high, and high school. In high school, I even carried a hunting knife in a sheath on my belt. Can you even imagine? And yes, it was allowed, as long as the blade didn’t exceed three inches.
When I first became a full-time teacher, I lived in Michigan City, Indiana. There was an knife/cutlery store at the outlet mall in Michigan City. When I visited as a 20-something adult, I decided it was time to upgrade my pocket knife. And I found The Mechanic. This Swiss Army knife had everything I needed. It had the usual blades and bottle and can openers, but it also had a Phillips head screwdriver and a pair of pliers. Now, most of you are probably thinking that no one really needs a $30 pocket knife. You’d be wrong.
The Mechanic, by Victorinox
I used the Mechanic for over 25 years. As a teacher, there were hundreds of times that I used the pliers alone to pull a locker open when a student had jammed the door shut over their coat. I used the Phillips head screwdriver all the time when screws came loose. Go ahead, you’re thinking it. I always had a screw loose. I sharpened innumerable pencils when the classroom pencil sharpener failed in its only job, evoking gasps from students almost every time: “Mr. McClain, you have a KNIFE?” I always laughed and said, “You do know I have to pass a background check every five years to work here, right?”
I used the knife to open cans of Trader Joe’s version of Spaghettios when I was sitting at conventions, unwilling to pay $12 for a sandwich that should have cost four. When my banner stand lost an endcap, I had the tool to put it back on. If that knife ended up costing me a penny per use, I’d be shocked.
I took this knife everywhere I went, even on planes, pre-9/11. I would never have thought of going anywhere without it. But there are some places where you just can’t take it with you besides airports now. No knives are allowed in courtrooms, for example. The county/city building in Mishawaka has a metal detector. And unfortunately, one year, I find out the hard way that you could no longer take pocket knives into Ford Field, where the Detroit Lions play. A few years ago, we were making our annual sojourn to see the Lions play, and we had parked two miles away and walked. And when we got to the gates, there were metal detectors and a strict policy posted. I did not have the endurance or time to walk another four miles to take my knife to the car and return, so I did the unthinkable; I threw my knife away.
I thought I could replace it easily. It had to be a popular model with all the use I’d gotten out of it over the years, right? Oh, I was so wrong. The Mechanic had been discontinued in 2017. There were no more to be found. Every time I found a knife shop to visit, I always inquired, hoping someone would still have one in stock, but no one did. I thought to just look online, and sure, I could get another one–for a hundred dollars!
Finally, I caught a break this month and found one on Ebay. I only paid $50 for it, including shipping. If that seems exorbitant, it’s really not. My $30 knife in 1992 would cost $63.22 now, with inflation. I actually got the replacement for less than I paid for the original. Is it a brand-new knife? No, but it opens cleanly and the blades are sharp. And even though it’s not the original one that I bought in the 1990s, I hope it’s something my daughter will carry when I’m gone and remember me. Because she never knew a time when I didn’t have one. And the way she is with machines, she’ll probably get more use out of it than even I did.
As February rolled in, I settled into a routine. Going to school, visiting my grandparents, going to church, buying comic books. It was comforting to be safe and have that regularity, but I didn’t know that feeling was about to be threatened.
My teacher, Mr. Hunter, was big on reading, so he made sure we all got library cards for Tustin’s small public library. He literally walked us across the street to get our cards and our first books. The first book I checked out was The Making of Star Trek, by Stephen Whitfield. I read the book from cover to cover the first day I had it. I was a huge Star Trek fan from the time I was a little boy, and it was still in syndication. I watched it after school on the black-and-white TV in the living room.
The book was so interesting and I learned so much from it that I read it again over the weekend. It described in great detail what everyone involved with a television production does, from writers to directors to producers, even best boys and gaffers. It had preliminary designs for the Enterprise, detailed views of the props, biographies of the actors, everything to keep a 12-year-old fan’s attention, especially in the age before the Internet. I didn’t take the book to school on Monday, and that turned out to be a costly mistake. My dog, Ladybug, apparently didn’t enjoy the book taking attention away from her, so she chewed off about 1/4 of the cover while I was away.
I had taken responsibility for Ladybug, remember, so I knew I was on the hook for the price of the book, $1.50! I was in a panic. I had to return the book at the end of the week, but I didn’t have $1.50 to pay for it. What was I going to do? I’d already bought a comic book on Sunday (Justice League of America #142) with my church money, so I was dead broke. I didn’t want to tell my dad or my stepmother what had happened, so I was determined to figure things out on my own. I started by trying to sell some of my old toys that I still had and didn’t need anymore to try to raise $1.50, but I couldn’t find anyone who wanted my old stuff.
Justice League of America #142
In Justice League of America #142, the Atom was having a crisis of confidence. The Mighty Mite didn’t think he fit in with a powerful lineup that included Superman, Wonder Woman, and he was ready to retire. He, Aquaman, and the stretchy Elongated Man were forced to fight to protect an alien called Willow, and even then, the Atom felt overwhelmed by the situation. I could relate.
I started looking for kids who weren’t in my class to buy my toys. I was getting desperate. I finally thought I’d found someone, a neighbor kid from down the road that I’d just met. I let him take the toys home before he brought me the money, and I was so relieved. But he returned them the next day because his dad had said no to the deal. I was crestfallen. I was spending nights lying awake, wondering what I was going to do. On the following Monday, I learned something about borrowing books from the library; you could renew a book if you weren’t done with it! I renewed the book for another week, while saving my church money in hopes of eventually paying for the book.
This temporary solution helped me sleep a little, but I was still nervous. After I ran out of renewals, I started paying the fines on a weekly basis. I got my next fifty cents of church money, but I had to pay 10 cents for the late fine for the library, so I was back down to 90 cents. The following week, I got another fifty cents, and paid another 10 cents. I had $1.30 saved up, so I knew it would only be one more week before I could pay for the book. My dad noticed that I wasn’t buying any “funny books,” as he called them. I just looked down at my shoes and said that there weren’t any that I wanted that week. I couldn’t bring myself to tell him what I’d done, and I didn’t want to be a burden to him or Peggy. I was still afraid of being sent back to live with my mom. I knew how my dad favored the women in his life.
After another week of fitful sleep, I finally had $1.80 saved up and I took my money to the library along with the damaged book to pay my debt to society. When I shamefully explained the situation, I thought the librarian was going to fall over laughing. She not only forgave and returned my fine money, but she gave me the book as well. They said that I was the first person to check that book out in over five years, and it was headed for the discard pile anyway. She thanked me for being such an honest young man, and sent me on my way. And I was rich! I had two whole dollars, and a book that I would read many, many more times over the years.
The Atom also found his strength, as Willow chooses him to defeat a powerful new enemy, the Construct. The Atom also realizes that he has a place in the Justice League. And I had my place at home. I wasn’t a burden after all.
I couldn’t wait to spend more time with my dad after I moved in with him. It seemed like no sooner had I moved in then we had to jump into a new routine, with going to church on Sunday, starting school, visiting my grandparents midweek, and bringing in wood on Saturdays. Honestly, I barely knew my dad at that point. When we’d have the rare chance for visitation, Dad would usually have some kind of female companion, whether it was his second wife, a new girlfriend, or his third wife, Peggy. We didn’t exactly get his full attention. But now that I lived with him, I wanted that to change.
In Mr. Hunter’s class at school, we were shown, courtesy of some timely Scholastic reading materials, some of the behind-the-scenes secrets of King Kong, which had just come out in December. I asked my dad if we could go to see it, and he agreed. He had to work a half day on the last Saturday of the month, but we’d go to the movies after. The theater in Cadillac was just down the street two blocks from Suburban Furniture, where he was a floor salesman. Also on Mitchell Street was a newsstand, one of my favorite places in the whole world, where my grandma had often taken me to buy books and comics.
I spent the entire morning at the newsstand, armed with fifty cents from the previous week’s church behavior money. There hadn’t been a new Justice League of America to buy, so I had saved it. I took my time and read as many comic books as I could, with no one around to yell at me that it wasn’t no library, which was nice. And sure enough, I finally decided on something worthy of my limited money; it was Six Million Dollar Man #4, from Charlton Comics! I had never seen #1-3, of course, but I wasn’t about to leave a comic book featuring Steve Austin behind!
Six Million Dollar Man #4
I hadn’t been able to read comics or watch many cartoons with superheroes when I was with my mom, but the Six Million Dollar Man was somehow an exception. My grandma on my mom’s side, had even bought me the coveted Six Million Dollar Man action figure for my 11th birthday, one of the greatest gifts ever. I met my dad back at Suburban Furniture, packed my comic book away in his van, and we went to the movie.
The one-sheet poster had been up for weeks, and it was tantalizing enough. Kong was straddling the twin towers of the World Trade Center, which had been completed not even four years previously. And unlike the 1933 classic, he wasn’t just going up against biplanes. There were helicopter gunships and a jet!
King Kong One-Sheet, 1976
The quality of the movie was unimportant to me at the time. What was important was that I was with my dad and I had him all to myself. We split a big bucket of popcorn and had our own drinks, something pretty much unheard of in my previous moviegoing experiences. It was like a dream come true. When I walked out of the theater, my spirits were as high as they’d ever been. Then my dad took me to Burger Chef for a late lunch, and I got one of the collectible glasses from the movie. Boy, those were the days; buy a Coke for $0.59 and keep the glass! And I miss Burger Chef to this day. House of Hunan has stood on that site for decades now.
King Kong Glass from Burger Chef
As we sat there eating our delicious Super Shefs, my dad couldn’t help himself but describe in detail what was wrong with the movie; how the bullets from the helicopters shouldn’t have been able to pierce Kong’s skin, how they couldn’t have gotten him on the ship; how Kong wasn’t big enough to wade across the river. I listened respectfully. I didn’t have the knowledge then to agree or disagree. One thing was certain: I wasn’t as jaded as he was–yet. I was just happy to be there with him, and the whole day just added another layer of security to my life.
I drank out of nothing but that King Kong glass for the rest of the time I lived there with him in Tustin.
While we were at home for a few days during the cold snap of January 1977, my dad suggested I work on my country report, the first long-term project I ever had to do. Oh, it was a laundry list of things I could choose from to put together about Saudi Arabia, a country that I could not have possibly cared less about. I could prepare food from there, draw their flag, talk about the major religions, clothing, culture…blah.
I was pretty cocky about my academic performance back then. I’d never had to try hard to do anything to do with schoolwork. The only grade below an A- I’d ever gotten was in penmanship. Yes, my young readers, we used to be graded on that. With that in mind, I ignored the country report for as long as I possibly could. I had better things to do with my time. That is to say, anything would be a better thing to do with my time. I’m sure you can see where this is going.
I waited until the last minute and I had thrown enough stuff together to get it done, at least. Or so I thought. I saved drawing the flag for last, because I was good at drawing. Have you ever actually looked at the flag of Saudi Arabia? Neither had I. I looked it up in an old set of encyclopedias, and cursed its designer to hell.
So, I spent a couple of HOURS drawing this nightmare, outlining the Arabic inscription, which translated, means, “There is no deity but God; Muhammad is the Messenger of God.” Ask me how I know that. It’s because I had to do a country report on Saudi Arabia. I was up well past my bedtime getting it done and coloring in a massive green field around my outlines by the light of the fireplace. And I swore that I would never procrastinate on a large task again. Oh, if I’d only lived up to that promise.
I ended up with a B on that project, which was the majority of my grade for social studies, so I finished with a B+ in the class for the quarter. And that is when I learned that some grades are stupid things to worry about. And to this day, I still don’t like Saudi Arabia. But not because of their stupid flag.
One big difference about living with my dad in 1977 was doing manual labor. I had to do plenty of it while living with my mom and stepfather, but I hated every minute. Working with my dad was fun. We used a fireplace to heat the unfinished basement we lived in, and every weekend, we went out and got wood for it. I learned how to use a chainsaw to cut down a tree, and how to split wood using an axe. Pretty cool for a 12-year-old!
But the fun part of cutting wood for our family was how we hauled it. We would venture back into the woods on Peggy’s property on snowmobiles, and we chained an inverted car hood to the back to one of them to use as a sled. We would stack the wood on the inverted car hood and haul it back to the house. For the next trip back to the woods, it was game on, as we boys would take turns clinging to the car hood for dear life as another would make sharp turns at high speeds to throw the rider off.
One weekday in January, it was bitter cold, nearly 10 degrees below zero. The wind chill made it far worse, like 25-30 below. Winds were fierce and snow was blowing horizontally by the time it reached the ground. School was called off, and it would have been a perfect day to huddle by the fireplace. The problem was that we were completely out of wood. It was one of the coldest Januarys on record and we had gone through all of our firewood by Wednesday. With no choice in the matter, it was off to the woods, just my dad and me, since my step-brothers stayed with their dad during the week. I can tell you with certainty that I’d never been that cold before, and I haven’t been that cold since. It was the kind of cold that made your lungs hurt when you breathed. We brought back four loads of wood on the car hood, but without the hijinks of the games we boys usually played. I realized later that this was actually a matter of survival. The physical activity of splitting the wood usually kept me warm enough to take off the top of my snowsuit, but not that day.
For the first time in my young life, I had a real sense of pride in the labor that I had done. I wasn’t just mowing a lawn or vacuuming a house. I was helping to provide heat and comfort for my family on one of the coldest days in memory.
When a stranger offers an opinion about my arrested development or emotional immaturity because I still enjoy the trappings of childhood in the form of comics or cartoons and the like as an adult, I just think about this day when I was 12 years old and I let them ramble in their ignorance. They have no idea what I’ve experienced in my life, and frankly, I generally don’t care enough about them to take the time to explain how wrong they are. The only person I ever need to convince is me.
Tustin Elementary was a small school. There was only one class for each grade, so I got to know all the sixth graders in Tustin. Mr. Hunter was the teacher, and he was cool. He had a big, bushy mustache and a way of speaking I had never heard before. He actually said “toe-mah-toe,” once when he spoke. I thought that only happened in the song.
This sixth grade experience in Tustin was entirely different from my previous one in Engadine Michigan. One drastic difference in attending Tustin Elementary as a result of living with my dad was the fact that I could wear blue jeans to school. When I lived with my mother, that was not allowed. When I asked if I could wear tennis shoes, I thought I was really pushing boundaries because I wasn’t previously allowed to do that either. I always had to wear dress shoes to school, which made recesses challenging at times. And God help me if I came home with a grass stain on my slacks. This was a whole new ballgame. I thought I might actually fit in right off the bat.
Up in the Upper Peninsula, kids were shy about the opposite sex. Not so, here in Tustin. Russell was paired off with Monica, and Ron had already laid claim to the prettiest girl in class, Janet. Oh, yeah, instant crush. I spent way too much time staring at her in class. Janet was best friends with Robin, who was also really pretty. As far as I knew, Robin didn’t have a boyfriend, so I felt good about that. I know, I know. Sixth grade?
I had always made friends pretty easily in elementary school. I didn’t have a choice. By the time I was 12, I had gone to nine different ones. And being a baseball kid, I would always find the boys to play baseball, pickle, or the more popular $5.00* with at recess. The problem was that it was January, and there wasn’t going to be any baseball to break the ice. They were doing indoor track events. A boy named Brent was a hero to all of us. He had been doing the shot put and someone threw him the shot. He caught it in one hand, but the weight of the shot pulled his hand to the ground and his finger nearly exploded under the weight. One day soon after, he pulled a bunch of us around to show us the stitches from the surgeons trying to put his finger back together again. The toughest of us stayed in. Some of us almost puked. His finger looked like it belonged on Frankenstein’s monster. I was one of the ones who stayed in, and that gave me the “in” I needed to be accepted.
The drawback of starting in a new school midyear was made plain to me that first week. The entire class were doing country reports, a long-term project. I had arrived after all the countries had been assigned. I would have hoped for Japan, since my uncle lived there. That would have been nice. But no, I was given Saudi Arabia, literally choice #25, a country no one else wanted. It was going to be a long week.
After church on Sunday, I was shocked to see that Justice League of America #141 was on the spinner rack. I honestly had never seen a cliffhanger resolved in a comic book series before. I would get the first part when visiting my grandma’s house, but by the time we returned, it would be three or four months (and issues) later. The first time I got the second part of a story, it had only been a week! Green Lantern was on trial for destroying that moon in #140, but Batman (of course) figured out that the moon had not really been destroyed, and that the Manhunters were engaged in a conspiracy to discredit the Green Lantern Corps as well as their former masters, the Guardians of the Universe. Such satisfaction had never been achieved by this young reader. What a perfect ending. And yet, at the very end, the League hadn’t been able to contact The Atom, Aquaman, and The Elongated Man, who hadn’t answered the alert, and in the best tradition of comics fandom, I couldn’t wait to find out where they were!
Justice League of America #141
On our way to visit Grandma and Grandpa later that day, I read both of the issues back-to-back all over again to get the complete scope of the story all in one sitting. I loved it. I still do.
My dad had a dog named Ladybug. She was a three-month-old basset hound/dachshund puppy. She was long, short-legged, with big floppy ears, and light brown fur all over. From the very beginning of my life with my dad and his wife’s family, I had an attachment to Ladybug. We did not have indoor pets in my mom’s household. Mom had tried to keep a pet, but Steve had always put his foot down. We had a German Shepherd named Dudley when I was in third grade, but he had a house way out in the back yard and never came inside. I fed him twice a day but was not allowed to let him loose or even to play with him. When we moved from that house, Dudley disappeared. I don’t even want to think about what might have happened to him.
But from the time I moved in, Ladybug and I were inseparable. She took to me immediately, since my dad’s affections were divided. She slept with me in my room, burrowing under my covers and sleeping at my feet each night. The problem was that Ladybug was a chewer. She chewed my dad’s moccasin slippers. She chewed a pair of my shoes. And then one day, she made a big mistake. She chewed up the couch. I don’t mean that she chewed one of the wooden legs of the brand-new couch. I mean that we came home and all four legs had been chewed. I mean that there was stuffing everywhere and that the upholstery was destroyed. For such a little dog, she did an awful lot of damage. Peggy, my dad’s wife, was done. She said that the dog had to go. Is it difficult to predict my reaction to this proclamation? I didn’t think so. I broke down completely, sobbing, begging them not to get rid of Ladybug. I had just made an attachment to another living thing after five years of trauma. After about an hour of tearful pleading, a deal was struck.
Ladybug would become MY dog. But as my dog, I would be responsible for everything to do with her. I would feed her, water her, take her outside, clean up any accidents, and, work to pay for any future damage that she would do in the house. To no one’s surprise, I agreed. But then, I would have agreed to give up my firstborn child to save that dog.
With deep snow outside, I spent a lot of time in my black Arctic Cat snow suit and Detroit Lions stocking cap, digging tunnels and throwing snowballs at Ladybug. She would try to catch them with her mouth. She loved being outside with me. And when it was time to come back in, there was no better companion with whom to sit by the fireplace and warm up. She was the Queen of Belly Rubs.
Ladybug’s favorite toy was a tube sock. Any tube sock. I would take my old socks, tie a knot in the middle, and turn her loose on it. She would shake them back and forth, toss them up in the air, pounce on them, and rinse and repeat. But her favorite game was tug of war. She would bring you the sock, drop it, and wait for you to reach for it. And once you got ahold of it, it was game on. She’d grab the other end, and pull for all she was worth. I think if you tied one end of one of her socks to a car, she could have pulled it uphill. She would make this adorable growling sound, so very vicious, but the moment either you or she let go of the sock, she’d wag her tail and be your best pal.
We had another dog in the house as well as Ladybug. Her name was Suzy, and she was Peggy’s youngest boy David’s dog. She was a beagle mix, and she and Ladybug would often go on adventures together in the woods next to the house. They loved to chase rabbits, which were plentiful. This adventurism, however, came at a cost one time. That cost came in the form of a porcupine. When Ladybug came back to the house, her mouth was just filled with blood. Suzy had a couple of quills, but with Ladybug, we counted, once we got her mouth open, over 200 quills. She was in agony. My dad grimly brought me a pair of needle nose pliers and told me to get to work. He showed me how to remove them by taking Suzy’s few out, and then I got to work. I had to pull the quills out individually, each time evoking a cry of pain, and I spent over two hours removing them, hoping that Ladybug wouldn’t bleed to death. We cleaned her mouth as best we could, and I slept out in the living room with her wrapped up in a towel. Incredibly, by morning she was her old self again, like nothing ever happened. I couldn’t believe it.
That next night, with moonlight still illuminating the Fantastic Four on my Marvel calendar on the wall, I wasn’t just grateful for my own safety, but also for that of the snoring dog under the covers at my feet.
Living with my dad was very different from the very beginning. We lived near the small Northern Michigan town of Tustin, a town built around one street. Not a lot of business there, to say the least. A hardware store, a general store, a couple of churches, and not much else. On the first Sunday after moving in, we went to church. My dad’s wife, Peggy, had four children from a previous marriage, all older than I was. Debbie was 17, Barb was 16, Johnny was 14, and David was 13. Debbie and Barb lived with Peggy, while Johnny and David lived with their father. We picked Johnny and David up every Sunday for church. We all sat quietly for the service, which was really no different than any other service I’d been to with my mother and stepfather, who attended a Baptist church in the upper peninsula.
After the service was over, we walked over to the general store. I was kind of excited. I never got to go into stores with my mom and stepfather. We three kids always remained in the car, and it was my job to watch out for my younger siblings. Peggy started handing out quarters to everyone; two quarters each. “What’s this for?” I asked, dumbfounded. “Behaving in church,” she said. I almost laughed out loud. I had just gotten paid fifty cents to do what I normally would have done to avoid getting beaten. I thanked her profusely and went in search of something to buy with my new ill-gotten wealth. The girls were buying cigarettes, which made me wonder a bit. The boys were buying bottles of pop. I spotted a comic book rack in the middle of the store. Taking my dad aside, I timidly asked him if I could buy a comic book. He just looked dumbfounded at me, tousled my hair, and said I could buy whatever I wanted. This had never happened to me in my entire life. I almost ran to the spinner rack and calculated the best value for my money.
I bought Justice League of America #140, with a cover price of fifty cents. It was a double-sized issue, and featured my favorite superheroes: Batman, Superman, Green Lantern, the Flash, all of them! In the issue, Green Lantern was accused of destroying a populated moon with his power ring, and he admitted his guilt and allowed himself to be taken prisoner by a group called the Manhunters! I had to know more. I bought the comic and after everyone had made their purchases, we all headed home.
Justice League of America #140
I, of course, had to read the comic immediately, and I didn’t wait until we got back to the house. We dropped Johnny and David off at their dad’s trailer, where they lived, and I may have mumbled goodbye, I’m not certain. I was engrossed in the story.
There was a particular piece of dialogue that stood out, as Green Lantern stood accused of a terrible crime, destroying an entire planet: “Blast it, Arrow! You’re always so quick to see conspiracies! I’m not brainwashed! I’m admitting my guilt, on my honor as a Green Lantern! I would have admitted it last night if I’d had the chance! Can’t you see it’s eating me alive?” This taught me a very different lesson, indeed, than being told to lie to my teacher about being punched in the face, for example. The DC superheroes of this time helped me develop a moral code, even when the adult role models in my life had done just the opposite.
When we did arrive back at home, the girls lit up their cigarettes. I was stunned. My stepfather didn’t allow smoking in his home. And I mean, ever. He had even forbidden my mother to smoke. She did it behind his back when he was away, but she did her best to cover her tracks. But right here, two kids were smoking! And that’s not all. They cursed like sailors. I was still not allowed to swear, but then again, I didn’t really want to. I was not only in a safe home, but I was allowed to read (and keep) comic books in it! After the girls found themselves something to do, my dad had another surprise in store. He and Peggy and I got into the panel van and headed up to Mesick to see my Grandma and Grandpa McClain. It turned out that Dad went to visit them every week! I was so excited, I almost forgot to take my comic book with me so I could read it again.
The trip from Tustin to Mesick was only 35 minutes, but I swear it seemed like an eternity. I passed the time by reading, but I couldn’t wait to see Grandma and Grandpa again. I had just seen them the week before during Christmas break, when Jeff and I stayed overnight with them, but this was different. This time, I was here to stay. We took off our coats and snow boots (Northern Michigan, remember?) in the familiar mudroom and Grandma met me at the doorway, almost crushing me with a bear hug. Grandpa was there at his spot at the dining room table, and he did crush me with a hug of his own. With hindsight and empathy that I didn’t possess then, I now realize that my grandparents suffered perhaps the worst of my parents getting divorced, as they only got to see their only grandchildren twice a year.
As the grownups sat around the dining room table, Grandma brought out cups of coffee for everyone; everyone but me, that is. I got a tall glass of milk, and I knew what was coming next: An entire Tupperware cake container filled to the top with chocolate chip cookies! It didn’t take long for us to put a big dent in the cookie pile. Grandma made the best cookies. On the other hand, whose grandma didn’t, right? And before too long, the adults were heavy into adult talk, and I asked Grandma if she would pull out my stash. She smiled and nodded, and went to her room, quickly bringing back my box of comic books. This was where I kept the comic books that Jeff and I received every summer and Christmas so that Steve wouldn’t get his hands on them. I was reunited with old friends.
I sat in the living room, in Grandpa’s recliner, reading under his favorite reading lamp. This itself was a treasured luxury. My brother Jeff and I were not allowed to sit on the living room furniture in Mom and Steve’s house. “Animals don’t sit on furniture,” you see. My dad had bought Jeff a padded Mickey Mouse stool a few years before, and I had been jealous as all get out of him for that. I had to sit on the floor. But there I was, in Grandpa’s chair, with the omnipresent bowl of Brach’s candies next to my spot. Starlite mints, butterscotch discs, and those terrible blue things. Ice Blue Mint Coolers, or somesuch. And there were a few anise square candies there, in their red wrappers. I love black licorice to this day, but I knew Grandpa liked those best, so I only ate one.
The adults talked until dark, which came fairly early, around 4:30. Then it was time to go. It was a school night, and I was starting at my new school the next day. Grandma asked me if I wanted to take my comic books with me. On previous visits, I had always insisted on leaving them, but now, I was suddenly free to have them with me all the time. I laughed at the thought and agreed. I was suddenly laughing a lot, it seemed. I wasn’t used to that. But I would get used to it.
My mother saved my life on December 5, 1976. It was my 12th birthday, and she asked me one simple question: “Who do you want to live with? Me or your dad?”
Things had gotten bad. The entire left side of my face was bruised from where my stepfather Steve had hit me a few days before. He had ordered me to tell my teacher that I had fallen into a door handle, but when Mr. Wise asked me what had happened, I matter-of-factly told Mr. Wise the truth: My stepfather had punched me in the face. Steve had also taught me never to lie.
I knew what would happen as a result: nothing. As far back as when I was seven, my younger brother and I had been beaten so badly that neighbors had called the police, reporting the screams. When the police came, they inspected our bare behinds, saw the welts there, and did nothing. Steve used a 14-inch wooden ruler with a metal backing to beat us. It was called “The Stick.” We always took our beatings with our pants and underpants down. Steve hadn’t drawn blood–that time. So, I knew that telling my teacher the truth would change exactly nothing. We lived in a small town, attended a Baptist church, and oh, boy, did I hear “Spare the rod, spoil the child” on multiple occasions. The bible, the church, and God had done nothing to spare me or my brother. I had become so inured from the beatings with The Stick by the time I was 11, I could take his beatings all day long and not even shed a tear. I couldn’t even pretend to cry. It would have been better if I could have, because it would have prevented the hard physical abuse that followed for the next year, including punching and kicking, having my head held underwater until I was forced to fight to breathe, and more. The Stick was still effective on my brother, who was six years younger than I. He “only” got beaten with that at this point.
Did I mention that my mother worked for the Department of Social Services? Any report of abuse would have crossed her desk before going anywhere where it would have helped us.
There was also no shortage of emotional abuse. Being called a moron was just a part of my day, despite my straight A grades. Lazy, stupid, weak, selfish, pig, all were words that I was more than familiar with. I heard them every day. We weren’t allowed to read comic books. My stepfather had burned mine in front of me in the first weeks that we lived with him. We were made fun of for playing with action figures. We weren’t even allowed to watch cartoons on Saturday morning.
The only reprieves that my brother and I ever had were visiting our father and his parents on vacations. We lived too far away for monthly visitations. We saw them twice a year. For one week at Christmas, and two weeks in the summer, we were safe in their arms. We could read anything, play with anything, and watch anything. I used to mark a calendar and literally count the days to safety. If I could only make it through until the next break, I’ll live.
My mother thought the same thing, because as she would relate to me years later, she was literally afraid for my life, and she would rather give me up then see me dead.
All of this flashed through my mind as my mother finished asking the question. Without a nanosecond’s hesitation, I said, “I want to live with Dad.”
The next few weeks lasted an eternity. I said goodbye to my 6th grade classmates, and my teacher, Mr. Wise. We left for Christmas break, as we called it back in those days, and went to visit my mother’s family for Christmas Eve, and my stepfather’s family for Christmas Day, as usual. The plan was to drop my brother and me off on their way home at my dad’s house, which we had never seen, and then my mom and Steve would return with all my things on New Year’s Day and pick my brother up.
It was dark when we arrived in Tustin, Michigan. My dad had told us that he and his new (third) wife Peggy, whom we had met at their wedding the previous summer, lived in a two-story home along a wooded area with a spacious yard that had a fish pond. We had directions and drove up and down the road they supposedly lived on but found no sign of this dream house. After stopping to ask for help, we found the address. It appeared that everything my dad had said was true, except for the house part. He and Peggy and her two oldest children apparently lived in an unfinished basement built into a dirt bank. Near the road was the burned-out husk of a house that had been destroyed a few years before. We went up the driveway, still unsure. There was a sliding glass door facing out over the spacious lawn and pond, sure enough, and I could see my dad inside.
My mom was LIVID. L-I-V-I-D, man. A litany of curses familiar to me only because they were usually reserved for my father spewed from her mouth. We went up to the door, and sure enough, this was the right place. I hugged my dad, and then got out of the way because I knew I would be trailed closely by my mother. I spotted the lit Christmas tree with presents still under it, undoubtedly saved for my brother and me, even though Christmas was a week previous.
My mom barely held her contempt and had some very direct, but hushed words for my father. I felt a chill, because I was afraid that this meant she wouldn’t let me stay with him, and that I’d be in for five more years of beatings…or more. After she was done with him, she took me aside, and asked me if I was sure I wanted to live here in this basement. I knew by now that my decision to live with my dad had hurt her feelings, so I tried to contain myself a little better than I had when she asked me who I wanted to live with. “Yes,” I said. “I’m sure.” There were tears in her eyes and she hugged me, something she NEVER did. I’m not sure if it was because I would rather live in a concrete box than with her, or just because she knew she would hardly see me again beyond visitations in the summer and the holidays as had been the case with my dad. It could have been both.
After my mother, stepfather, and sister left, we sat down to open our Christmas presents. Now, my dad was known for his terrible gift-giving skills. He had bought me a Tonka truck the previous year, which I was a little old for. I had my share of Skin Bracer after shave, too, from previous years. But in 1976, he hit it out of the park. He had bought my brother and me matching Star Trek phaser pistols.
Remco Star Trek Phaser Gun
These battery-operated wonders lit up, and allegedly made phaser sounds, although it came out sounding more like a communicator chirp than anything. They projected a beam of light on the wall with a set of three discs that made a light silhouette of three spaceships; the Enterprise, a Klingon ship, and a flying saucer. My newest stepmother immediately regretted these gifts as we chirped all night long. They discovered quickly, however, that the chirping sound could be disabled by removing the 9-volt battery in the pistol grip, while still allowing the flashlight part to work. My dad also gave me a 1977 Marvel Memory Album, which I put aside. It would be a few days before the New Year. When we were shown to what would become my room, a separate cinder block partition, my brother and I shared the bed, me on one end, and him on the other. We played with the silenced phasers until the AA batteries in the back of each one died. We went to sleep happy.
When New Year’s Day came, my mother and stepfather rolled up the long, snowy driveway, and the car was loaded down. I could see my bike tied to the roof. That was the first time it really hit me. This was permanent. My brother Jeff and I were going to be separated for the first time since he’d been born. We’d been sharing a room for years, while my younger sister had her own. We had bunk beds with matching sheets and identical NFL bedspreads. I wasn’t even sure I could sleep without him in the room. Suddenly, I had second thoughts about leaving him behind. But no, surely with me living with my dad, Steve wouldn’t dare beat on Jeff the way he had me. I knew from stories that my dad had fought Steve years before and came out on top.
When my mom hugged me, I didn’t think she was going to let me go. She whispered to me that if I wanted to come back, to just call her and she would be there that same day. I tried to fight back tears but lost the battle. I told her I loved her and watched her go. I watched them all go.
I went back to my new room and hung the 1977 Marvel Memory Album. At that time of my life, I wasn’t a big Marvel fan, but that hardly mattered. It was a comic book item, something I had not been allowed to have in my room at my mother’s house. And I hung that calendar proudly over my dresser in my cinder block room with some Scotch tape. The first page was January and featured the Fantastic Four, fighting Skrulls.
I still have a copy of this calendar!
I had never read a Fantastic Four comic in my life, but I had watched the cartoon with my dad when I was little. I knew who they were, and that was enough. When my dad came in to tuck me in (he had no idea what to do with a 12-year-old who doesn’t need to be tucked in, but give him some credit for trying), he kissed me good night and told me how glad he was that I was there with him. He closed the curtain over the empty space that would someday have a door and turned off the “living room” lights outside my very own room. Moonlight leaked in ever so slightly from the basement window, illuminating the calendar on the wall, and just before I fell asleep, I felt silently grateful for my new situation. I was finally out of danger. I felt warm and protected, from both Skrulls and my stepfather.
