A Real Bed

Before kids I never thought about having a real job. There wasn't really any need. I always managed to have money in the bank, pay my rent and put food on the table, while having a social life and buying expensive beer. My life, I thought, was great. I stayed up as late as I wanted playing Nintendo till the wee hours, writing, or throwing darts, or bar hoping -- and I worked only when I had to.

I turned thirty and things changed. One month after my birthday Breydon was born, my first kid. The first thing to change was going to bars, babysitters are expensive when you're a graduate student. Next went the expensive beer, diapers, baby food et al are expensive.  I still stayed up all night, now rocking a baby to sleep, and I still wrote, but now trying to get published rather than entertaining myself. I thought my life was great! I was a teaching assistant, making enough money, working very few hours, and loving teaching.

A few years later Breydon turned three and Jude, my second son, was fast approaching one. I was adjuncting at a university; we still had money in the bank, were still putting food on the table, and I was still writing - I had almost finished a novel. Life wasn't great though.  Our savings were dwindling and Breydon wanted a bed.

A bed I couldn't afford to get him. Currently his crib mattress was set up in a pup tent in his bedroom. Cool, Right? What little boy wouldn't want to sleep in a tent every night?

Breydon, that's who.

We were visiting my uncle at his condo at Geneva on the lake.  Lake Erie impressed Breydon, when he saw it, in a hushed voiced all he could muster, in total awe, was "Bath." He didn't have a word for lake; he'd never seen one. Bath was his default; he used it to describe hot tubs, bathtubs, swimming pools, and now the mother of all bathtubs, Lake Erie. Even though the lake impressed him and he thrilled at the rides and devoured hot dogs at Eddie's, what impressed him the most was the twin bed in my uncle's condo. He wanted a "real bed." He was excited to sleep in a "real bed," and he even knew Jude would want one too.  Like I said my life wasn't great, I couldn't even afford to get my son a real bed, not on an adjunct's wages.

I quit narrating in my head, and my dad took over, then his dad took over his narrating. My internal dialogue had become puppet strings pulled by generations of Sicilian men. Men who talked about hard work and responsibility, and taxes, and paying bills, and retirement, mixed in to the Italian English shouting match even little Breydon had started narrating for me. "I want a real bed," was all he kept saying. Like I said my life was no longer great. I needed a real job and a twin bed.

Teaching high school was my only choice; it silenced the Dago chorus of JOB SECURITY SAFETY, JOB SECURITY SAFETY, and would buy Breydon his bed. There was a problem; I had a BA in Anthropology, and graduate hours in Anthropology, rhetoric, communications, and creative writing.  Not a big demand on the secondary level for anthropologist who could teach creative writing.

Looking back there were a lot of choices besides the real job, keep adjuncting, get a graduate degree that would allow me to teach, get a graduate degree that would help me write. I couldn't see any of them, blinded by Sicilian yelling. PATRIARCHY, PATRIARCHY, PATRIARCHY!

I loved teaching high school, and after several years of classroom teaching, Breydon had a bed, but the three boys would rather sleep in tents,  and we were putting food on the table, there was money in the bank, and I was tired. Strike that. I was exhausted and hadn't seen much of my family.

Sicilian's value family more than life itself, but when the puppet voices scream in your head family is never one of the chants. My dad was gone a lot for work with the Air force; his dad was a railroader and frequently gone. They were great providers, probably silencing their own puppet voices. Puppet voices yelling patriarchy, patriarchy, familia; but they were rarely around.

Exhaustion drove me to the brink, like it does so many; it drove me to the brink of madness. I did the unthinkable, I killed the puppet voices. One by one I strangled them, thrashing them like Muppets through a blender. It was self-defense I tell you. It was me or the puppet voices.

My life is great again.  Apparently killing puppet voices is the best thing you can do. The boys all have beds, we put food on the table, and we have money in the bank. I teach virtually now,  all online and I see my wife and kids. And I have plenty of time to write.