*The Others

CATEGORY: Memoir

AUTHOR HINDSIGHT: Full of myself, I was. Still am.

Of all our mother's boyfriends, my sister Gail and I hated Morris the most. Not just because he was fat and bald. Al the trumpet player was fatter and balder and we almost liked him (though we never admitted it except to each other).

"You won't give any of them a chance," Mommy complained.

We didn’t bother to deny it.

"Gail,” she continued, “you just glare and won't say a word. It scares them."

Gail glared at her.

"Mommy, she glares at everyone."

Gail glared at me.

"And you, Sandy, always with sarcastic remarks they don't understand but can sense are not flattering."

"Can I help it if you pick boyfriends whose combined IQ isn't as much as an 11 year old’s?" I asked.

"Listen girls, I want to get married again, and I'm going to, even if I have to sneak dates with the guy and introduce him to Sandy Smartass and Gloomy Gail, after the fact."

That alarmed me. Mommy was capable of doing such a thing, especially considering her mental problems.

"Al," I said decisively, figuring we should go with the pick of the sorry litter. "We want Al."

"Al?"

"You forgot him already? He's only, what, four boyfriends ago? Let's see, there was Al, then Mickey the mechanic, then -"

"Mickey! Yeah! He had great Mr. America muscles," Mommy said, with a faraway look in her eyes.

"Uh-huh, and he smelled like gasoline and got grease all over the house the minute he walked through the door."

"Al got married, for your information. And it could have been to us."

My heart sank. Best cut our losses and keep going with the review.

"Ok, after Mickey there was umm, Axel?"

"God that man was handsome! Blue eyes like Paul Newman."

"Axel," I said, “who bought an alligator farm in Florida with his brother. Mommy, I just don't see us in proximity to alligators."

She grunted with what I assumed was begrudging agreement.

Obviously, grunters can begat glarers.

Back to the list.

"After Axel,"I reminded everyone,"there was Stevarino."

"Wait a minute," Gail spoke up. "You're skipping Lochinvar. He wasn't creepy like the others.”

"Agreed. He was merely embarrassing. Remember when we were in line to see The Little Mermaid? He recited ‘Down to the Sea in Ships’ to the whole movie line."

"Everybody clapped," my mother said.

"It was by John Masefield," Gail chimed in again.

Mommy looked smug. "See, Sandy. You can actually learn things from some of the men I date."

"I kept all the poems he wrote for me."

I could have clobbered my turncoat little sister.

"That's sweet, honey. I kept all of mine, too."

"Why in the world would you guys keep them? They didn't even rhyme!"

"What if he's famous, someday? They'd be worth a lot of money, girls." She was ever practical when it came to making an easy buck.

"I like them,” Gail said.

"Like them? You don't even understand them," I sneered, finding my own niche among the grunters and the glarers surrounding me.

"No, but they make me think interesting thoughts," she replied, with dignity and without glaring.

"Let’s move on from this fascinating literary discussion, shall we” I said, trying to keep everyone on task. “Now, after Lochinvar there was Stevarino."

"God he was fun. Girls, stick with the guy who's the most fun."

"Good advice, Mommy, but just remember, the man referred to himself as Stevarino. In third person."

"So?"

"I'm not even going to be sarcastic about him. Stevarino. It stands alone in all its glory."

"Which brings us to Morris, girls."

Yes, Morris. The most dangerous of all because he was the current boyfriend.

His fatal flaw wasn't being greasy or raising alligators. He didn’t say "Morrisino wants to go for pizza."

His flaw was more serious: Morris had a lustful eye for little girls. That was my trump card, and I intended to play it to stop the wedding ceremony itself if necessary. I hoped it wouldn't be, because I sensed this was new territory for us, adult territory. I had felt something wrong with Morris without a name to put to it, but when Gail said something to me last week, I knew it was big.

"He's like those bad guys school tells us to stay away from," Gail said. "Pooverts, Sandy. He looks at me funny."

"Good intuition, kid," I smiled at her, but was concerned.

"So here’s what I wanted to tell you girls about Morris. I'm not dating him anymore. His neighbor Ben asked me out. What a dreamboat! He's tall. A lean and lanky cowboy. He's a musician too, plays the banjo, so if you liked Al maybe you'll like him too."

Great, I thought. Does he yodel to the cows as he plucks his banjo strings, I stopped myself from saying. But I didn't want to jinx Ben. Morris was out!

"Do you do this to your father," Mommy asked,"or is this dual treatment of sarcasm and moody silence reserved especially for my love life?"

Gail glared at her.

I sneered.

"So what don't you like about his girlfriends?"

"Well, Carol made us go to the symphony way beyond the norm, which I would say is once a childhood. And Laura had a bratty son who stole candy and stuff from us. Minnie was funny, not Minnie-ha-ha, but funny in the head. Technically, we didn't break them up, though, because she got committed before we could do it. And Devon -"

"That's enough," Mommy laughed. "I get the picture!"

No you don't, I thought to myself. The "picture" is just the four of us. Gail, me, Daddy, and you. Together in one frame. And those others are never seen again. Let them be in their own family portrait.

Eventually, our parents each married an "other." The experience of having a stepmother and stepfather wasn't as awful as we had anticipated. They were both okay people. Anyway, by that time I only had a couple of years left until I could leave home and start screwing up my own life.