I never saw my mom, but I remember seeing her naked.
Come on Fruedians. Come one, come all.
I was fifteen. Or was I sixteen? I can't remember...
We, my brothers and I, all lived in an apartment with my mom. All hid there, so my dad couldn't find us, while my mom filed for custody of us. Of my two brothers and I.
Before this, well, we lived with my dad. In case you never caught on he was a meth addict and a meth dealer. You might know what that means, maybe not. Maybe you know heather, eh? Sorry I never write you, I don't know what to write. But he was so erratic... god. I could tell you the same stories I've told you. The worst part was when he told me I had a black soul, but you wont' get that,
I had the black soul. Not anyone else. Just me. Because I... drew it all to myself. When my dad was coming down, when he would get violent, I would throw myself in front of him, I woudl make fun of him, I would make sure he left my brothers alone. When he went after them.
My youngest brother, four years younger, spilled a glass of kool-aid once. My dad flipped out. Started pulling drawers our of the cupboards and throwing them at him, one was full of knives and hurt him a bit not bad, but I stepped in like usual and took everything I could. Then I put band-aids on my youngest bro. He barely remembers it... my dad claims it never happened, but I have another brother whose only a year younger then me.... and he remembers it exactly like I do. The kool-aid day. It only stands out because my dad threw a drawer full of knives at Seth and hurt him bad enough that I had to bandage him up. My dad, to this day, denies it happened. Though we hurt him, when we confronted him together and told him it happened. He insisted, in this pathetic, "please please please" way, that it didn't happen. "Fuck him", I thought, "I love him now", I thought, so I dropped it.
That was just the violent insanity. And it was more then that. "Dad, we're all hungry and there is no food" *WHAM* and you get punched in the face and fall down, wondering what the fuck is going on, as his friends laugh. And... and.. nothing, they all go back to what they are doing.... cutting lines of something... meth or coke, who knows. Ok. Just another day, me and Byron will steal some food from him, since he hid it in his room. We got in by going under the stairs, there was no lock on that door. My dad just piled up tons of heavy boxes in our way, but we made our way through. I was scared of the spiders so usually Byron went through. And it was always candy.... my dad alwyas had food in his room, when we didn't have food upstaris. Few people know what no food actually means. But we'd steal his food, and it was candy. Zingers, buttefinger bars, shit like that. We'd eat candy.... It's the biggest reason I became vegetarian, an effort to eat no more candy, to be healthy, to feel healthy.
Then there was the worst part. But, by this point, by the age of fifteen I am talking about this was no long bad. I knew, by this point, that he was insane. By this point.... but before.. he would always talk about aliens. Jesus returned. other shit, classic paranoid schizophrenic shit. God, he would tell me, us, that he was jesus returned. Or he could see our auras. That's when we all discovered I had a black aura. You don't undertand, no you don't you don't undertand how hearing that hurt me, but maybe one day I'll write it up here. Hell, maybe I already did. Fuck if I know, I'm a fucking drunk, I can't keep track of what I've written. Floating invisible eyeballs that only he could see that came from the alien clone of him from the other dimension at a giant organ that was really an alien keyboard. They were spying on him.
He was going to write music to save teh universe. He would point out satellites and call them alien spaceships and talk about their missions. Lucky for me I was near-sighted as fuck, didn't know it, didn't have glasses, and couldn't see shit. Stars? I couldn't see any stars, so I just ignored him. Figured it was more of his insanity.
It's taken awhile but by this point, by years ago, all of us brothers have realized my dad is insane. Meth will make you insane. What do they call it? Drug induced psychosis. Meth or Acid. Drugs you should NEVER DO.
To get back to the story. My mom showed up. One day, out of nowhere, this woman who was my "mom" in some way, just showed up. I didn't know her, no one did, but there she was. She slept on my dad's couch. I don't know if she fucked him in exchange for this favor, I doubt it, but I wouldn't put it past her. She stayed there, and I talked to her.... it was strange. I'd always clam up, I couldn't think of what to say, like running down a tunnel you knew you had to get through and hitting a wall that wasn't there. But, over the month or months, I honestly don't know, I told her all about what my dad was like now. And I pointed it out to her... "See!!!", I'd say, see him kick holes in the wall. I'm glad I'm no near him or I'd be getting some of those kicks. See him rambling about Jesus and Buddha having conversations without him and lashing out, fists flying, is that not insanity? "HELP UP!"
I plead with her, but even then I knew the stupid bitch. Eventually my best and oldest friend's parents noticed I was always a little black & blue, heard a little too much negativitiy from my best friend. One day I got this phone call, "you can run away, you can run away, you can live with us, we'll hide you here..."
So I did. I lived with him and his family. I don't think my dad even noticed that I was gone. I talked to my mom about it, she said "good for you" or something, she didn't really care. I know that now, but she made it seem like she cared... right. I went to school, and went home to Joe's house. Slept there, ate there, his mom drove me to school, told me to run if I saw my dad. Good times for all.
Then my mom said she was going to sue for custody of us.
Now, lest you think that the state was never involved, let me disabuse you of that notion. People complain about over-zealous social workers, well, let me complain about under-zealous social workers. We had social workers at my house all the time. Probably at least fifteen times in four years. My dad woudl literally fight with them, verbally, extremely close and aggressively, and throw them out. They would look through the cupboards. Once we had baking soda, pancake mix (I am a fucking pancake master chef), and milk. The social worker told my dad we didn't have any food, and that was enough to start an enourmous screaming match between 'em. And the did nothing. NOTHING. EVER. FUCK SOCIAL WORKERS.
I'd dream about killing my dad, so we'd all be free from his Bill & Ted's music save the world, angels visting him and telling him so, fantasies. Oh god. I can't even begin to describe it! I should devote a whole post to his insane rants about how
his music would save the world. About how he was Jesus returned. Buddha returnd. About how he was really god. About how he was an alien. Or part alien. Or the scion of the alien genetics effort. Or how he was going to invent a time machine. Or how he had invented one. Or a dimentional portal machine, that made sense because if everything is possible then everything has happened and other such nonsense.
The best thing that caused? I learned to evaluate
everything with an extreme skepticism. So call me a skeptic, my few internet friends, my puppets, my stuffed animals I ramble to in my own private insanity. How can I not be, even when I've wanted to be otherwise... to make my life better.... I HAVE to. And it's the best way.
So my mom came out. She was there. I had told her how things were. Then I... I abondened my brothers.. I did. I left them to fend for themeselves. Then my mom told us she was suing for custody, to take us, and all my fantasies of assassinating my father sunk a level lower. Now I could foster dreams of living with someone I didn't know, but should love me. We moved in with her. We didn't move in with her, though, actually....
We ran away. All of us, my brothers, left my sister behind. But that is so complicated I won't even get into it right not. Not unless you are privy to my personal life. She ran away with my brothers and I, and hid us in an apartment in Sandy.
The guy next door was crazy. Over the months, he lost it, he cut himself up and bled all over the hallway, all over our door, and the police arrested him in the backyard swinging a rake, fighitng "them" off. He was schizo but stopped taking his pills. Sachi.... makes me think of you. How you are worth a million dollar man not someone who would cover our door with blood, leave us all scared to go home. My mom told us never to answer the phone or the door. And we didn't. We kept the windows shut.
She put us up in boy's town clubs. We played pool and video games and watched tv. They have all that stuff. Byron and I read a lot of books, we demanded we be taken to the library. Sometimes when we were home someone would knock and knock and yell "I know you are in there" over and over and we would hide in the back. My mom told us that 'they' would be looking for us, to make us go back with our dad. I didnd't want to go back with my dad.
Once I was up late, everyone else was asleep. Someone knocked on the door, my mom was in the shower. No one had ever knocked that late.... my mom opened the bathroom door, standing there naked, and told me not to open it. First naked woman I've ever seen. Always made me think that... I dunno... that a naked woman wasn't really all that attractive. Kind of ugly, with bumps and folds and ripples and hair... gag...
Eventually. Well. Eventually my mom left, but it's all so confusing....
it's such a blur
it all blurs together
one day we were with her the next we were with my dad, him rambling about finding aliens to give him special information, driving around in the mountains all night while we tried to sleep in the back.... homeless. He sold the house. The state had taken Shannon.
My mom had left. Later I found out why, and I'll just tell it to you know. Another reason I hate her more then I hate anyone or anything in this world. She wasn't htere for us. She was there because hse was trying to leave her boyfriend Richard. They lived in Vernal, Utah. He was a rich (+$5 million net worth) alcoholic who spent nothing, into S&M, beat on my mom (that bitch loves shit like that, fuck you, FUCK YOU you who may be reading this, she was beat on and she LIKED it, she wanted it, FUCK HER). GOD DAMNIT. Where was I? Richard. He was financing my mom's judicial attack on my father, to get custody of us. But that's not what she wanted... all that responsibility. Right! AHHAHAHA. No, she was actually in Salt Lake City so she could try to make her lesiban relationship with some fat ugly dike bitch who owned cattle ranch work out.
I'm dead serious.
Once that lesbian relationship failed she left us. She just told the private investigator my dad had hired (he hired a PI to find us... why? did he really care...) and they picked us up. Only, things were too late, he had called the cops and reported us as missing.
Oh shit for him.
Cops + social workers = FINALLY court action.
FUCKING FINALLY. I was the only one who had to testify.
sorry if this isnt' clear
this entire part of my life goes like this
the judge wanted me to testify
no, it was the lawyer
but i had to testify to the judge
they were keeping us away from my dad, somewhere... where... where.... i can't remember. wtf?
the laywer took me to the court, there were people everywhere, i was so scared i was goign to see my dad
the lawyer had been 'coaching' me, telling me it was important to emphasize that when my dad went berserk he didn't just hit me, because it's ok to hit your kids, no, I had to emphasize that he hit (mostly kicked, actually) me in the head. In the
head. I had to say head, the lawyer said, or they would make AND byron AND seth go back with him... I had to say it, it was important. head head head hea dhead
i was going to have to go to the court
my dad was going to be there
i hadn't seen him in awhiel.. where was I? WHY CAN'T I REMEMBER?????????????????
but the judge was nice. he let me go into his office, just me, and him. And the two lawyers, but he told them to shut their fucking mouths and not say a word or he'd throw them out. He talked to me in his office. I can't remember it... Just a generic judges office.... it's all I can remember.. all I can remember is that it happened.
so I told him. And he asked. "Did he hit you in the head." My throat was so dry. I had to swallow to talk, and it was hard, hard to swallow. But I told him the fucking truth, despite the fucking bullshit my dad tries to say. I told him the truth.
And we went to live with my grandma. And my sister went to a community hospital. And my dad went to forced drug rehab.
End of story.
for now.
You know.... you know.... I finish my forced court-ordered drug rehab for alcoholism in three days.... I shit you not.
-Snowden
