Trying To Explain My Mother

This is one of only two pictures I have of my Mother.

She was brilliant. A career student, but she always quit before she got a degree or certificate. She liked learning, and was always on the Dean's list. Straight 4.0, Word.
She had a photographic memory. She blamed it for her mental problems, said she could never forget.
This was Easter Sunday, 1983.
See the poster on the wall beside the front door? We hung it there to cover up a hole. She shot from the top of the stairs one night, when she thought someone was breaking in our house. When we woke up at the gunshot, she accused us of having put one in the chamber. I promise, we didn't, but she always had to blame mistakes on anyone else but herself.
It left a tiny hole in the wall inside the house, but the outside of the house had a huge exit hole, so we covered it up with a poster. We would change out the poster when it started looking faded. Didn't want the landlord to know she shot a hole in the wall, and it was unmistakably from a gun.
Mother had mental problems. As long as I had known her, she had always sported evidence of a drastic slashing to her wrists. These weren't little unsure scars, they were deep and there were perhaps 20 on each wrist. I asked her once if she ever considered suicide. She looked me right in the eyes and said she was too mean for that, she would just as soon kill everybody else than to try to kill herself. I believed her.
Growing up with her was always an adventure. We ran from place to place. Always afraid of the Social Services coming to get us. We lived for a while on a commune in Summertown Tennessee. It was vegetarian food, homespun clothes, kids working in the fields, and brainwashing. She couldn't take too much of that. We left in our stolen stationwagon and went to the first Burger Hut we could find and ate the BEST hamburgers of our lives.
We lived in the woods in Harts Run State Park. I remember a certain Mother's Day, the weather turned bad and some other campers decided to pack it in. They gave Mom the steaks that were in their cooler. She proudly brought them to our camp. We cooked them with the frog-gig that was in the toolbox, and ate them with our pocketknives on the end of a stump. She said it was the best Mother's day present ever.
We abandoned the stolen stationwagon there in the park.
We moved into a little apartment above an apothecary shop in White Sulphur Springs, WV. Mom made a deal with a little antique shop to pay $5.00 a week for an old sewing machine. Then she hitchhiked to Lewisburg and got a whole bunch of scrap linen and scrap lace.
She sewed all day and night. She made cuptowels and pillowcases out of the linen with lace borders. She sent my brother and I out to sell them. We went door-to-door and sold every single set for $7.00 each. We had our pathetic little faces and we told everybody that our mom made them so we could pay rent. We could sell as many as she could make.
We stayed in White Sulphur Springs for about a year. Meanwhile, she was applying for student loans at colleges all over.
We went to Bluefield and they rejected her because she wasn't black. They assumed by her name that she was black and were ready to take her.
We went to Elkins to the Davis & Elkins College. Mom made my brother and I be a part of her entrance interview. She wrote about our experiences at the Commune, and let the people interview us for our particular opinions. She got in.
So, we disappeared in the middle of the night from White Sulphur Springs, and started a new life in Elkins.
Now, the next maneuver was pure genius. I wouldn't believe it if I hadn't lived it.
We got a room at a nice little room and board in an affluent neighborhood. The blue house in this picture was directly across the street. Mom made great efforts to make us all look presentable. She wore pretty skirt-suits and put her hair up in the bee-hive (which I hadn't seen her do since the '70s). And started shmoozing with all the old ladies. She inquired about the big blue house and found out that the president of the bank was taking care of it for his sister. So she unbuttoned one of her top buttons and made her appointment with him. She negotiated the house for $500.00 per month. We moved in.
It was HUGE. Wood floors, three stories, fireplace, sunroom. And us, we didn't have a pot to piss in. The old ladies that mom made it a point to gossip with, were told that our furniture was being moved and would arrive on a certain date. My brother and I were always to back mom up in any of her lies, and I wondered how she would pull this off. Finally, the day came and went and we had no furniture. Mom put on quite a show. She cried and went into hysterics. The moving men had stolen all our stuff, her babies' christening gowns, her baby grand piano, all her pictures and family heirlooms, everything was gone. Boo Hoo.
They bought the story lock, stock and barrel. The donations were incredible. We got two couches, two refrigerators, washer and dryer, beds, clothes, drapes, money, more stuff than we knew what to do with. When we were done picking out what we wanted, there were garbage bags full we stored in one of the spare bedrooms.
Some of you are going to raise an eyebrow and say: That was wrong.
Some of you are going to say, "Wow, wish I'd have thought of that."
My mother and I began a war after this. She didn't tolerate disloyalty. As long as I was under her care, I was to do as I was told and never contradict her.
I had to be taught that lesson over and over, and it only got worse as I got older and had a mind of my own. Especially when she would let me take the rap for something she did, or blame me when she got caught in a lie. I grew to hate being her kid. I wished I belonged to any other family but mine.
This little story covers the years 1981-1983.