"Sandy pt 3" from Escaping the Despondent Sea"

Sandy kept on about the coo-coo clock and various antiques and possessions that Richard and Angie kept tucked away, including many guns. She kept on about it until we decided to call her son to ask for them. A threat had to be imposed in order to get him to comply with her request. These items were all stored in his basement, along with the pot he was growing. The very thing that he had suggested I broke in to get at. He refused to give up the items, saying that they were his, which fueled a battle that lasted for days until I got on the phone, threatening to turn him in for the pot if he didn’t give his mother what she was after. He hung up at that statement, only calling back about an hour later to say that he had checked his perimeters and was willing to concede to Sandy’s argument. The next day we met him at his house, retrieving a van full of stuff. It was packed to the gills with just enough space to get back in and ride home, stopping off at our storage unit to unload the items. The van had over heated from the haul and wouldn’t start when we went to leave. It finally started after about two hours.

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Jerry moved the Jayco to a site we picked out at Conestoga but it didn’t have a full hook-up, meaning the sewer line. That would require me to drain it manually, hauling a thirty-gallon honey pot back and forth from the tank to the dump station. Jerry’s son said to just run the grey water out a hose and down the hill into the Grand River. He said that was what a lot of them did with the grey water, which is a separate holding tank apart from the actual sewage tank. It was the first of April when we moved into the Jayco. The lot we picked was on the very end of the row along the ridge facing south. It overlooked the forestry below where it met the bank of the Grand River as it flowed westward to meet Lake Michigan in Grand Haven. Our lot was also next to the graveyard- a very old graveyard. I remember worrying about the very large oak tree that was standing on our North side- a mere six feet away. It had a huge limb that was more like another trunk, hanging a big threat that stretched precariously out over our trailer. All I could think about was a story that my close friend, Arek Clark, had told me about when he lived here years ago.

 A man was lying in bed but then got up to make a bowl of cereal. The tree that was next to his camper suddenly broke and fell onto it, landing right where he had been sleeping. It destroyed his camper and would have killed him if he had not gotten up to eat. This was an especially haunting tale, being that we were located right next to the graveyard, and reminded us of death almost every moment of the day.

The storage facility, in Allendale, where we kept many things, was right next door to a gas station where I liked to acquire Drum rolling tobacco. I would always get two pouches from the rack and then go to the drink cooler, where I slipped one down my coat sleeve. Then I’d approach the counter, go through my act of pulling out my wallet to see that I didn’t have enough money, then to return the pouch to the rack. This was almost always too easy to pull off, unless the person behind the counter was someone I had done it with recently but since the store had a big employee turn over, and was always pretty busy, it was fairly easily done. Sometimes I could do it two to three times a day but at least a couple times a week, which was enough to get by. This was a technique I used at the places that sold beer as well, grabbing two jumbos but slipping one down the sleeve of my heavy coat.

We didn’t go a day without drinking. Sandy wouldn’t really discuss not drinking. Her emphasis was just on me not drinking. And I agreed but not drinking wasn’t something easily done on the one-way street of a relationship. Strength is in number, yet we remained divided in many ways. One morning she opened the cupboard doors and beer cans spilled out everywhere. It’s funny, for a person who claimed to be a hippie, and always talking about Jehovah and the Kingdom Hall, she was a nonstop consumer. She’d always say things like, “there’s nothing to have”, but we’d spend money that we had to sell things to get, to buy gas, and risk driving all the way to the city, drinking both ways, to buy a small amount of pot. We ended up spending thirty bucks for a ten-dollar bag of grass- smokes, drinks, gas and pot. What a waste. We could have just grown our own pot. None of it was that serious but it was to her. We would scrape the pipe at least three times a week and I hated it every time she asked me to do it. This evil would remain veiled by her home-making skills, her deceptiveness, charisma and her charm. I was so loved starved that I was blinded completely. I was so blinded by her wiles and my own drinking and psychological issues that I couldn’t even see myself to find my own errors for correction. It’s funny how things can compound so thick and fast, stealing you away from the future with the moments.

For the most part, while with Sandy, I had forgotten what I was doing and what I wanted in life. I had become brainwashed with the promises of love, giving up my hopes and dreams to follow someone else’s. She was a siren but I didn’t know it yet. She would always mock me about my dreams and aspirations of becoming an entertainer, telling me, “There’s no time in this system. Jehovah is creating a new system for you to do it there”.  My dreams of musicianship were rekindled when I had met Danny but they were lost when we became separated by a situation caused by lack of money, coupled with his despair from his afflictions- all of which were caused by alcohol.

After a week in the trailer, I had a fit of paranoia fueled by Sandy’s own. I began to tear out the radio and speakers that came installed in the trailer. Since Jerry was an ex-federal agent with the F.B.I., I was concerned of eavesdropping. One of the things that motivated my concerns was a very large and powerful looking two-way radio antennae. Sandy was always an instigating factor for suspicion and evil doing, which got me pumped up pretty badly.

When we got down on our luck we would drive around looking for returnable beverage containers on the roadsides. It was while on one of these excursions that we stumbled upon one of Bob Smithe’s Home Builder signs. He would put me to work doing whatever he had going on at the time until his alcoholism and demeanor contaminated our work relationship again. The main problem was that it seemed he couldn’t be man enough to deal with his personal frustrations on his own time. He took advantage of using me as his punching bag until he couldn’t stand it any longer. Mostly he was ticked off because I wouldn’t lose my cool on him.

After a while, I would end up calling Tom Bruin to ask him for work. He had me come out to a project in Jenison, where he was building a house for the Parade of Homes, offered me twenty-five dollars an hour. At that moment all was well. That is, until Sandy got wind of the Cleaning Lady.

My first big standing cabinet was a four-person locker bank with a boot-box seat. It stood eighty-four inches tall by sixty inches wide, was built from birch plywood, made with bead-board inlaid doors- all painted white. I have pictures of it somewhere. Tom also had me build the staircase, especially since he had witnessed some of the work I had done in the past; how solid the newel posts and banisters were, the accuracy in the miters, and the meticulous attention to detail.

The house was to be in the Grand Rapids Parade of Homes, which meant that it was doomed to heavy bombardment and buffoonery of morons yanking on the staircase to see how well it was built, being the defeat of many who claimed to be a carpenter. Now, this staircase has to be the neatest one I have ever done. And I was proud to be the one to build it. The main newel posts were site built out of Maple. The balusters and spindles were wrought iron with a painted finish, and had decorative piece that slid onto them to be fixed in a position with a hidden set screw to make up a collective pattern that the artist assembling it felt would be most aesthetic and pleasing to the eye. I had to use a clear silicone adhesive since it was “finish complete” except for the maple. The newel posts were monumental, rigid and solid. And when struck they reverberated throughout the home. I received more compliments on that staircase than almost anything I had assembled in my life.

So, feeling very proud of myself, I took Sandy to the jobsite to show her my accomplishments. She had been continually complaining about not being able to go along with me to work. She wanted to do the cleaning after the work was all done. I explained that Tom had someone he always used on his projects. So, she asked if she could help them with the task. I said I would ask Tom about it, which I did but Tom couldn’t make it happen. For a while she kept on about the teachings of the bible, trying to manipulate me into taking her to babysit me for fear I was doing something wrong or that she felt she should be included in. It was her intention that I understand God gave man woman for a helper, and that I acknowledge that, and always have her as my accompaniment, according to the Scriptures.

We arrived at the project and everything was fine. Having never seen a lot of my trade, she was amazed at what I had been working on, taking a few pictures of the staircase and the cabinetry. Around noon a van pulled up and someone got out. It was the cleaning lady. When she walked into the house, she greeted us with a smile and cleavage, along with a radio, plugging it in right away. Sandy’s body language said it all: “What’s with this precocious little skank?” I mean, the cleaning lady was blonde, cute, maybe thirty years old and trying to appear sexy with her mannerisms and style of fashion, and she was flirtatious. She was everything she needed to be in order to work feeble men over for money and opportunities- it was clearly her M.O.

That afternoon the guys showed up to do some punch list work, last minute details. The cleaning lady was washing windows inside the house, chatting away with Tom and whom ever she could engage in conversation.

The decorators showed up with furniture and ornamentals to dress the place up for the showing in the Parade, pushing items they happened to have for sale in their store. The speakers in the boom box were blaring, “It’s getting hot in here, let’s take off all our clothes,” and the cleaning lady was singing along. An emotional volcano built up pressure inside of Sandy. As the song ended, the cleaning lady turned and said, “I need to wash the windows outside but I have to climb the ladder. Zach, will you hold the ladder for me?” The top of Mount Sandy found a crack and she finally exploded. She turned crimson, screamed a series of cuss words and stomping out of the house, knocking things over and slamming doors as she returned to our van.

Tom came running out of one of the back bedrooms asking, “What happened? What was that noise?” I explained Sandy’s jealousy, and that she lost it when the cleaning lady asked me to help her with the ladder while she washed the upper windows on the backside of the house. Tom muttered something about Trust being important in a relationship, which was funny to me because he was selling cookie dough for the cleaning lady, and telling me not to tell anyone about it. I suspected he was having an affair with her.

Anyway, on this day lots of things came together about this group of people. For instance, Tom wore a baseball cap because he was bald but for a small wreath of hair that stuck out from around his hat. He took it off that day to scratch his head in confusion over why I even brought Sandy to the job. The male pattern baldness didn’t go well with his Napoleon-like stature, making him look even smaller than before.

Tom was married to an accountant who had shown up at the job with his son- a blonde haired child of about eleven.  His wife wore the look of years of suspicion and a bad marriage, where a husband is rarely ever home. I could tell by her aura that she was extremely unhappy.

John, Tom’s right hand man, was an alcoholic who had a lot of familiar problems as well but he managed to stay working for Tom for a long time, though off and on as the drama caused by the constant drinking would always do. It didn’t stop Tom from drinking with him routinely after work, which had some purpose but I did not know what. I think Tom may have appreciated this relationship with John due to distracting himself from his own problems in life.

The cleaning lady was married, also working for Tom for a number of years. She had brought her son to the job as well, which looked almost exactly like Tom’s own son but about four years younger. It came out that the cookie dough was hers that Tom was selling when she asked me if I would buy some, saying that it was for her son’s class at school. It was to help raise money for an upcoming class excursion. She spent a lot of time with Tom during throughout the day, chatting about everything and flirting with anyone who would reciprocate. Every time I walked into a room, they were there acting as if they were busy with their duties. Her with her expensive undergarments riding high above the waistline of her jeans, and her blouse unbuttoned down to the bottom of her sternum, exposing much of her breasts.

Now whether the cookie dough was really for the school or if it was to offset child-rearing expenses, I never concerned myself much with determining. However, I did determine that Tom and her had something pretty big going on. I could not get the image of Tom’s wife out of my head. I felt so sorry for her, and I could only imagine all of the broken and empty promises, the shattered hopes and dreams, and the feelings of betrayal- all of this drama because of the concerns of a man and his penis. I couldn’t help but think of how he told me that his wife couldn’t find out about the cookie dough, and how the look on her face said there were too many lies, and enough poorly kept secrets already. And there I was in the mix. I felt her pain, her frustration, her broken heart and her anger. A poisonous situation that was poisoning my own life even more than I poisoned it myself. Throughout the coming months Sandy would administer a dose of abuse whenever she had a problem with me by mockingly mimicking the words of the song the cleaning lady sang that day.

The day we completed the job, I accidentally busted in on them “working” in the lower bathroom together. Her g-string stuck out in plain view from the back of her pants, as if her pants were hanging lower than they should have been. It became very clear why they were always working in the same room, away from the rest of us. On this day we all went into Jenison to Brann’s Steakhouse after work, where he threw hotel room keys at Johnny after buying him an excessive amount of drinks that would require him to sleep it off, knowing full well that Johnny is an alcoholic but needing a scapegoat for the room. Some routine small talk verified that Tom’s wife was an Accountant, and that she was extremely suspicious about his expenses. I must admit that Tom was clever but not clever enough to get what he wanted without any hassles. Oh God, what a pain in the neck I had from all involved. All I wanted to do was practice my trade and receive compensation for it.  

A week or so after the job was over, the Sandy wind stopped blowing so hard. Within another three weeks of the job, I was called to another project- this time up at Crystal Mountain Resort. Naturally, I agreed to do it. Having some money to work with, Sandy and I rented a car and we were off, eager for the road trip.

Escaping The Despondent Sea is available on Amazon Kindle Unlimited, and is receiving 5 star reviews on Goodreads.com