Uppity

Copyright © 2012 C. J.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Abbott Press books may be ordered through booksellers or by contacting:

Abbott Press

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.abbottpress.com

Phone: 1-866-697-5310

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

ISBN: 978-1-4582-0317-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4582-0318-2 (e)

ISBN: 978-1-4582-0319-9 (hc)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012906274

Abbott Press rev. date: 6/4/2012

Contents

Weiner

Biography

Leonard and Beth

Siblings to the Rescue

Her Gums Are Worse than Her Bite

Tricks

Leonard and Beth

Trix

Dirty Girl

The Crush and Green Goo

Move to California

Norman and Beth

Life On the Road

Spanking

Afraid of the Dark

Not a Good Morning

Closet

Nowhere to Go

Cry Boy, Cry!

Growing Up on the Red Planet

Clean Slate

Tomboy

Don’t say no to Red

The Boogeyman

Litter Bug

Pacman

Bully Beat-Up

Girls for Sale

Baptism

Nikki

Braces—Alas!

Naivety

Ramona

Midnight Swim

Turning Point

Safety

The Dream

Trichotillomania

69 Chevy Impala

Mickey D’s

Groceries

Phone Sex

First Time

Just an Empty Box

Jumped

Norco

License Alterations

Escape

Air Force: My Savior

My Send-Off

C.J.

Military Life

Therapy

Leave

Red: Home Sweet Home

An Unexpected Gift

Five Dollars to Say Fuck

Grandma’s Circus Act

Retard or Moron?

Get Me Some Ambien

Bathing Suits- Overrated

Let’s Ditch School

Yard Sale

Dentures Mishap

Check Up from the Butt Up

Grandma’s Dead … We Think

Jim

Let Him Eat Cake

The Forgotten Family Visit

Flight Risk

Shock A’ Son Gout

I’d Hide You …

Life Goes On

Afterword

Dedication

To all who have ever been abused by someone they love, in the hope they realize how beautiful and strong they are.

With the scars we share, we are able—with work and consciousness—to love more deeply and vulnerably.

Foreword

The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference.

—Elie Wiesel

On first inspection, you might be inclined to think this is a story you’ve heard before. A teenage girl gets pregnant and gives birth to a child while she is still very much a child herself. The young mother, who is seriously challenged by managing her own life issues, must now also provide for her own baby girl and does the best she can.

But it quickly becomes evident that this is no ordinary story. It is, in fact, the extraordinary memoir of the relationship between two extraordinary people.

An extraordinary person is an ordinary person who makes extraordinary choices. Often, those choices are made in contrast with what is expected, what is acceptable, or what is generally known as normal. The motivations for those extraordinary choices can vary. Some are made from a desire to stand out from the crowd. Some are made in an effort to establish a greater sense of personal safety and to provide for one’s well-being. Others are made because the individual is somewhat distanced or disconnected and seeks to establish a reality that is uniquely his or her own.

All of those choices are on display here.

By making these extraordinary choices, both daughter and mother define their own paths, create their own lives, and write their own stories. Sometimes their choices, and their stories, operate in harmony, —but often they do not.

The stories of their life together unfold like a family album, snapshot by snapshot, vignette by vignette. There are many textures to the recollections that the author brings forth in this account.

It’s a story of confusion. It’s a story of pain and suffering. It’s a story of forgiveness and redemption. It’s a story filled with laughter. It’s a story of self-knowledge and exploration. It’s a story of maintaining character in the face of adversity. It’s a story of surrender and vulnerability. It’s a story of perseverance. It’s a story of fear and desperation. It’s a story with great sadness. It’s a story of healing and hope.

But ultimately, it’s a story of love—an extraordinary story of love.

— James Wurm

Acknowledgments

Erin, who helped me name my book.

Angela, for supporting my crazy ideas and for always having a canny way of knowing exactly what I’m thinking.

My family, for making me laugh and love like nowhere else. And for always supporting me with my random ideas despite my idiosyncrasies.

Jim, for being the love of my life and for loving me for who I truly am. For allowing me to bare my soul without fear of being judged. Thank you also for always believing in me and allowing me to be vulnerable. I couldn’t have done this without your support.

My parents, without your love and dysfunction I could not have had the stories, passion, or energy to write an autobiography more interesting than fiction. And thank you Mom, for always being willing to answer any questions I had while writing this book, even though I know it must have been difficult for you at times.

Harley and Vance, for always loving and supporting me through a divorce, roller derby and writing this book. You have always been my biggest fans, and I couldn’t have done any of this without your love and support.

Oh, and to Alan. By the way, the book is 186 pages long.

Introduction

Some people, it seems, can retell their life’s stories like movies. They can recall on a whim their most idyllic moments and replay them over and over to whomever inquires.

Although I do not remember minute details of my childhood to the extent I feel most people can, I do remember incidents that, when connected together, created who I am today.

And though I know, in no uncertain terms, how much my mother loves me, what I remember most is a general sense of getting on her nerves.

Weiner

My name is Carol Jean, and I was born in Ogden, Utah, on February 18, 1969. I was named after the one person my mother loved most in the world—her little sister. My mother’s name is Beth, and Leonard is my biological father’s name.

My mom has always made it a habit to not call people by their given names, and that habit has also extended to me. It is not uncommon for her to call me Jean, Jeaner, Jeaner-Weiner, or just Weiner (if she’s in a good mood). Because I never liked the name Carol, I never really minded when she called me by these other names— not even Weiner.

I was very young when I met my Aunt Carol for the first time. She was, and still is, beautiful, with long, flowing blond hair and a sweet smile. The most striking thing I remember is her birthmark. Its width that of a human hand, stretching from her right ear cascading down her neck into the small funnel between her large breasts, as though a man had dipped his hand in coffee, then gently caressed her neck and chest leaving only the crème-infused mocha tint on her ivory skin. I had never seen anything like it before or since. She was fortunate, I thought, to have such a splendidly unique mark on her body. And though she was attractive already, this birthmark I felt, only accentuated her beauty.

This is your Aunt Carol, my mom said as she introduced us. She has the same name as you, she added, with a smile.

Feeling confused and scared, I began to cry. Although, like I said, I never cared for my name, I was still terrified that this person, my aunt, was trying to steal me- to steal my identity.

If her name is Carol, I thought, then who am I?

Not knowing what to do about these feelings, I stood there, unmoving and terrified, tears streaming down my face.

Her name isn’t Aunt Carol, I finally muttered, shaking my head.

Sure it is, my mom assured me, confused by my reaction, just like your name.

I stood there feeling more panicked and trapped. After what felt like a long, awkward pause, as my mother and aunt stood staring down at me, I finally blurted. "Her name isn’t Aunt Carol. Her name is… Aunt Sunny!"

I’m not sure how I came up with that name, but as soon as I uttered those words, a sense of calm flowed over me. To this day, I still call her Aunt Sunny.

My Aunt Sunny has a daughter named Nicole who is a few years younger than me. Nicole, her mother, and my parents all live in a small town on the southern border of Oregon called Hixville. It is often joked about in our family that Nicole and I must have been switched at birth. Nicole, you see, seems to connect with my mother more easily than with her own. She and my mother are both large, imposing women who enjoy smoking cigarettes, gambling, swearing, and staying up all hours of the night.

Though the similarities are less obvious between my aunt and myself, we are nonetheless just as connected. While both of us are also large, imposing women, as that is a physical characteristic that runs in our family, neither of us smokes. And although we are assertive women, we aren’t as overbearing as my cousin and my mother. Unlike my mother and my cousin, my aunt Sunny and I also ultimately married men untraditionally older than we are. And unlike my own mother, I understand my aunt, and feel at peace when I am with her. When we are together, my aunt and me don’t have to say a word; there is simply a mutual connection between us that is all too often missing from my experience with my own mother.

In contrast, my mother and Nicole view my aunt and me as snobbish bores who choose to not hang out with them simply because we think we are too good for them. But the truth is we just don’t enjoy the things they enjoy. So instead of acquiescing to a day of being miserable with their drama, smoke, and negativity, we choose instead to live our own so-called mundane lives.

Biography

My mother’s parents moved the family from California to Ogden, Utah in 1965 due to job obligations. They had five young children and though none of the kids were terribly excited about the move, my mother, the middle child, had the hardest time adjusting to this change. She has also always felt like the black sheep of the family and claims to this day, that this move to Utah only exasperated her feelings of being ostracized and different.

I never wanted to go to Utah, my mother says to this day. "I hated the schools there. I never did good in school even before we moved there, and moving to Utah just put me that much more behind. I always felt so stupid. And I kept failing my classes, but the school kept pushing me ahead just because I was so much taller than the other students."

My mother’s mother was a nurse prior to retiring. She’s a tall, statuesque woman with a kind, loving demeanor and sweet voice. My grandmother is one of the sweetest women I know, and by all of her children’s accounts, she was a good mother.

My mother’s father, Ray, worked as a civil service sheet metal worker at Hill Air Force Base, before retiring. Although age and physical ailments have mellowed him out, it is understood that he had quite a temper when it came to his children. And like the culture at that time, he didn’t believe too much in sparing the rod. It was not uncommon for him to beat my mother, her older sister Ruth, and their oldest brother Tom with his belt when they misbehaved. By all accounts, my mother was obstinate, unruly and could be contrary just for the sake of being contrary, yet despite this challenging character flaw, her father on the other hand was probably excessive with his discipline. And because of this, my mother, of all the children, had the most tumultuous relationship with her father. She recalls instances when Ray would be so enraged with her that he would, at times, resort to beating her with his hands and fists. Although I’m sure my grandmother did her best to keep the beatings to a minimum, my mother says she didn’t do enough.

Ray, don’t hit her so hard, my mother recalls her mother saying to Ray during one of her beatings. But she never really put a stop to it, my mother says. There were times when I thought he was going to kill me.

During these times of physical abuse, it was not uncommon for my mother to run away from home. Not only did she instinctively want to escape the beating at hand, she had also hoped it would provide her father with enough time to pause long enough to contemplate his behavior, thus putting a stop to any future beatings. Sadly, when her parents would find her, or when she would finally decide to come back home on her own, Ray and Ruth, feeling at a loss at what to do with her, began placing her in and out of various psychiatric wards.

It was so scary, my mom recounts today. "When they’d catch me and put me in