Caden's Conceivence

I'm curious how many clean breaks one is offered in life, how many lucky favours & unearned blessings one can cash in on before life's pool of generousity runs dry. I'd like to think it's un-ending, that it is fed by some aquifer under the mormon stomping grounds of Utah, but it probably isn't. I'd also like to think that undeserved, generous happenstances which wash one's hands clean of undesirable situations occur free of contingents, & while I don't ascribe to any type of notion the likes of which could be called karma, I also don't think you can get lucky & just nod your head. I just hope recognizing it is repayment enough.
(& yes I know I just made up a word with conceivence, shut up.)

Central Texas, towards the end of summer, 1996

It was a simple crime of convenience, a small grace offered & - as desperate is as clever does - I took full advantage of its appearance. I'm a little shitball of a teenager & because I know she finds it humiliating I refer to my mother only by her first name, so it comes out: "Cathy, pull the car over I think I'm gonna puke". But I don't honestly tastefeel the bile coming up, no I'm at best a little light-headed from the blood rush due to mild shock, but see I'm already building it up, subconsciously & in a matter of milliseconds I've already ran through all the different ways I could roll with this, determined their outcome, chosen the one which best favours myself & started to play the part. So what could've been a moderate response like "what the..." or "holy shit" or "mom, you should pull over", came out as "I'm gonna puke". My mom pulls over to the side of a busy 31st street & I begin to dictate from the letter I'm holding in shaking hands.

The fateful missive is from my brother, five years my elder, attending Cascade Christian College in Portland Oregon. I remember being taken aback by the tone he used, decisive, authoritative, adult. It could've easily been that same year that he sent me a letter detailing all the different acronyms for farts (SBD, the G&L, SOD) & now in no short order he is detailing how his girlfriend is preggers & they are going to live together & he is going to quit school & he is sorry & she is too & how he wishes he could have found the courage to tell mom over the phone but he just couldn't & he's sorry & she's pregnant.

My mom is the one who vomits, later on, back at the trailer park the two of us call home.

New Year's Day, 1997, Wyoming

He storms out of the hotel room & neither one of my parents make a sign of following. What happens next in that quiet & barren room is some of the most intense decision making I've done as of yet in my life. Here I am, on the upswing with ma & pa due to the event of my brother having un-safe sex & trust me, I am in bad need of some good favour with them, & then there he is, my brother, in the middle of the most trying time in his life as of yet & my parents are threating to disown him, to never speak with him again if he moves in with this woman before they are married. My dilemma: go running after my brother, consoling him if possible but in the least becoming comrades in arms or keep my as of recent good standing with my parents. Finally, I decide that their goodwill is merely passing, that I'm only under the radar for now & that with time my parents will return to berating me. I run out into the bitterly cold & deserted streets of Casper, Wyoming, in search of my brother.

Texas, 1987

By choosing to pursue a career as a preacher my father unknowingly chose a path for his three boys. By default, through association, we are now preacher's kids & we're now held to a different standard, we must live up to a stronger, sturdier moral practicality.

Northern Idaho to central Texas ≈ 1700 miles

My parent's were late to discover the problems I was going through as a teenager. When the family relocated from metropolitan Texas to rural northern Idaho I backlashed, against them, against religion, against life. My parents were cautious & suspecting but they didn't learn the depth of my sins until a friend was caught shoplifting &, when offered with the choice of ratting out cohorts or going to juvie, well what would you expect a fifteen year old to do? But unbeknownst to my parents was that with the same type of youthful rashness which had propelled me into a life of petty crime & drugs & cutting myself, I had also started down my own path of quitting these things. I had been quietly cleaning up my life, repenting to & forgiving myself without the help of outside criticism for a year. My parents didn't see it quite the same. The were of the opinion that I needed to see a counselor. But not any counselor, a specific one, one in Texas. I was not pleased with this idea.

My mother & I, 1700 miles, 2 & a half days, silence for the entirety of the trip.

By the middle of autumn my counselor is having sessions with my mother more than he is with me. This has been too much for her: first my villanous past is brought to light, then my brother fathers a child out of wedlock. She becomes first despondent, feeling like a failure both as a mother & a christian. With time she becomes suicidal. Her & I live in a camper set up in a trailer park just outside Lubbock, Texas. It is a bi-level with a three step staircase between the bedroom & the living area. Twice I hold her tight against these steps with enough force that she comes out with bruises the size of baseballs on her back & legs, just to keep her from going. To where she doesn't know, she doesn't care, just to leave, leave me here, leave the family completely. Just Leave.

Christmas, 1996, central Oklahoma

Amazingly enough the whole family got together. My oldest brother & his wife, my mom & I from Texas, my brother from Portland & my father from Idaho. There is this unique quality to family in which during those really, really shitty times, when you can't even seem to muster up the decency to speak with one another, when every one is hurt, & no one has anyone's interest or needs in mind other than their own, that still, with all of the selfishnes & pride everyone feels, the family seems to gravitate together. Or maybe it's just the stubborn nature of my family. Either way there was this unstated understanding that while we'd all just as much like to slit each other's throat on a cold christmas morn, we also knew that we needed each other. Or maybe it isn't so much that we needed each other but rather we knew that one of the others needed us, so we toughed it out. That's really it, I guess, with family. They tough it. Love sorta just demands that sometimes.

New Year' Eve, 1996, I-25, ten miles outside Capser, Wyoming

I remember being jolted awake in the back passenger seat. Out the windshield all one could see was thick, dirty white smoke. Inside all one could hear was my father's cursing. Something popped, something fell loose, something anything it didn't really matter because the one & only thing going through my mind, my brother's mind, my mother's & father's minds is that it is nine pm, it is new year's eve, it is the middle of Wyoming & we are goddam stuck here & we all hate each other right now. My oldest brother & his wife had flown back to Oregon while my parents, my brother (yes, that brother, the one with the pregnant girlfriend) & I had to drive back to northern Idaho together. & now we are stuck in Wyoming, for god knows how long, with daggers drawn.

No shop is open. There isn't even a mechanic willling to do the work on holiday pay. Folks from Wyoming aren't friendly & they aren't helpful. We will be stuck in Casper for three days. It is a statement on our willpower that someone in the family wasn't killed. Though one was disowned.

June, 1997

My brother's first child, my parent's first grandchild & my first nephew is a boy. He is named Caden David. He is most certainly my brother's child, his two foot tall doppelganger.

& his birth was a mixed blessing & my family didn't deserve blessings, not then. We were at our most severly selfish, we were judging & hating & hurtful. In many ways this continuation of the family line kept us all together. What was most certainly turning into the last summer that my mother & I would ever see each was alleviated by the fact that my brother went & did something that while perhaps not more damaging than anything I had done, was assuredly more longterm & was as equally devastating to the "family name". If nothing more I was let off the hook, not to say that my parents & I would never have problems again, but after piling some of the most confusing & complicated issues one can experience in life all atop each other in just a few short months, well it sort of put every thing else in perspective.