Tripping Over Akron: Alcoholism & Insanity

Tripping Over Akron

Alcoholism & Insanity

Donna Runeric

Copyright © 2011 Donna Runeric

Smashwords Edition

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Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION

PART I--Genetics

PART II--Demolition

PART III--Reconstruction and Tripping over Akron

CONCLUSION--Coming down in 2011

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

INTRODUCTION

Just about 40 years ago I met, but never married Todd Walsh, the father of my only child, Katie. For more than 20 years after meeting Todd my life and decisions were seriously affected by my emotional instability and alcoholism, but my rejection of Todd’s marriage proposal had little to do with my drinking or mental ills. My rejection was based almost entirely on a single incident that he and I would not discuss until 2006 when we began an email correspondence. That was the year Todd and I learned we were about to become grandparents.

The incident, which took place in 1970, could at the very least be classified as sexual assault, but I never reported what happened that day. At the time I was too naïve to recognize the act as criminal behavior; most of the women with whom I was acquainted in that era of drugs and free love were equally naive. I hated Todd for what he’d done, but was still in love with him when I married another man later that same year.

About two months into the marriage I became pregnant as the result of a one-time indiscretion with Todd. Giving birth to a child not fathered by one’s husband was frowned upon even during the era of free love, and was the central reason my first marriage failed. I didn’t tell Todd he was Katie’s father until years later. By that time he was married and I was involved in a relationship with my current husband, Ron.

Before I met Ron I prayed, Dear God, please send me a man who will never stop loving me. Oh, and I want him to be smarter than I am and not bad to look at. I neglected to ask for someone more interested in amassing wealth than fishing for brook trout. I got the looks and the smart part of my request, but good-looks and a PhD won’t necessarily eliminate life’s complications. In Ron’s case those complications include Obsessive/Compulsive Disorder, depression, and thalassemia minor, a condition Ron sometimes calls small hemoglobin. Ron’s blood doesn’t get enough oxygen which causes him to want to sleep a lot, ergo, not much action in the becoming-a-millionaire department.

Ron never wanted children . . . no, it was worse than that; he believed bringing children into this world was a mortal sin, but he accepted Katie into his world and became a better example of stability for her than I was most of the time.

In 1999 Katie moved to Oregon and I decided to begin writing for her a genetic history of the events that brought her into the world. Katie eventually married, and on September 14, 2006 gave birth to her first child, Suzannah.

Prior to Suzannah’s birth, I emailed Todd (Katie’s sperm donor, as Ron calls him) to tell him we were to become grandparents. Our communications led him to asking me why I rejected his proposal when Katie was a baby so I confronted him about the assault. He was shocked and said he had no memory of having perpetrated such a hideous act. Since Todd and I were both survivors of that bizarre era of sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll, we determined there may have been drug related reasons for his degenerate behavior and also for his inability to remember the incident. We closed the door on the event and soon recognized we were still in love. We began rebuilding our relationship hoping to construct the family life with Katie that we’d never had. Unfortunately, that plan involved the demolition of both our marriages; his of 35 years and with two nearly grown children, and mine from a man whose mental illness caused some of the worst nightmare scenarios in my life. Added to the difficulty was the resurgence of my own suicidal depression and alcoholism. The dormant memories of my unhappy childhood were brought back to life once again by the trauma of those unexpected events.

As so often happens with these extramarital affairs, apparently even the unusual ones, Todd and I ended up staying right where we were when the whole mess began, all parties involved much worse for the wear. We discovered one is never too old to screw up one’s life. We also discovered the meaning of unconditional love—love neither Todd nor I deserved after we’d thrown so much hell at so many people.

The experience also took me to within inches of taking my own life—again. But the love of my daughter, my best friend, and the undying devotion of my quirky husband brought me back to my senses. It was worth the trip because there was much I still needed to understand about my alcoholism and psychological irregularities. I would have never believed it possible for my demons to resurrect themselves so late in life. Never underestimate the power of psychological demons.

My relationship with Todd is cordial these days. We are, after all, Katie’s parents and Suzi’s grandparents. He’s narcissistic and quite covetous of his property and in the end he didn’t really understand how to handle a psycho like me. Not sure which came first; the Jesus Christ, Donna is a freaking psycho! or, Jesus Christ! If I keep my word to Donna I’ll have to give up some of my stuff! I suppose if either of us had been billionaires the events would have played out differently, but life might have been even worse; those people with loads of money are always getting into scrapes.

This story is told through emails, journals, letters, pictures, lyrics and dreams. My dreams are pretty weird. No, they’re really weird, and keep getting weirder. Such is the fate of people who live with dysfunction and screwed-up genetics. Some names have been changed in my story to protect the innocent, as well as the EXTREMELY guilty.

Have a nice trip.

~ ~ ~

This book is dedicated to my amazingly loyal and generous best friend of over 40 years, Carol. And with special note to Katie, without whom none of this would have been written.

~ ~ ~

The search for truth is not for the faint of heart.

—Detective Bobby Goren

PART I—Genetics

Wild World

©-Cat Stevens

But just remember there's a lot of bad and beware

Oh, baby, baby, it's a wild world

It's hard to get by just upon a smile

Oh, baby, baby, it's a wild world

I'll always remember you like a child, girl

Katie and me, November, 1976

January 1, 1999

My Darling Katie,

Now that you’ve moved to the other side of the country from us, I suddenly feel compelled to tell you all the details of how you came to be. I don’t know when I’ll give you these details; I don’t know when I’ll finish this journal/history/thing, but maybe someday you’ll be interested, or maybe someday you’ll have children who will be interested. (I can’t believe you got on that plane last night. You know why I sent you off with Tea for the Tillerman, right? Of course you do!)

(You, flying and Carol crying.)

As you already know (but may have forgotten some of these details), I am the third child of parents who met while working at The Diamond Match factory in Barberton, Ohio, in 1942. Your Grandma was born in Hoquim, Washington to parents who met and married in Tennessee. Your great-grandparents moved to Washington after they were married because your great-grandfather did not wish to be inducted into military service during WWI. He was, after all, a McCoy! And the McCoys, at least the ones to whom we’re related, felt that America was literally the land of the free and that a man’s first duty was to his wife and children. Yay, Grandpa! When it seemed safe to return, your great-grandfather brought his family back east, eventually to the Akron, Ohio area.

(Your Grandpa Marks (middle) and his brothers, Albert and Bissell. WWII)

(Your grandma, my mom, holding your Aunt Carol, around 1945.)

The McCoys, including your grandmother, were hard workers. I remember your grandma telling me that after she graduated from high school in 1939 she went to work as a live-in housekeeper for a large, well-heeled family. One day, after scrubbing floors, doing loads and loads of laundry on a washboard, and various other chores, she was so exhausted she made a bed by pulling two wooden chairs together in the kitchen. She only wanted to recuperate for a few moments before resuming her drudgery. Imagine!

(My grandpa McCoy’s mother, this is terrible Katie, I can’t remember her name and I can’t track down the record. On the right—me, my grandpa McCoy, Thomas Houston [or as he would be known these days, Oscar the Grouch], and Carol around 1953.)

Your McCoy ancestors also sought spirituality, but only of the Protestant variety and your grandma became a member of a Nazarene Church when she was a teenager. When she began working at the match factory she secretly fell in love with a Catholic co-worker named Carl, but in those days, if you were a member of the McCoy clan at any rate, woe be unto you if you married outside of your religion. Your grandma told me several times over the years that had Carl not been Catholic and had he asked, she would have married him. She always adds that had she married Carl your Aunt Carol, Uncle Jon and I wouldn’t have been born, and wouldn’t that have been a tragedy. What a bunch of bull shit. I usually say things like, You would have had us; we would have just looked more like Carl than dad. She never agrees with me. Who knows; she could be right. Anyway, when Carl went off to war, your grandma allowed my dad to court her. (For the historical record, or if anyone wants to do any genealogical studies, your grandmother on your mother’s side is Wilda Mae McCoy-Marks-Schaar-McCoy, and your grandfather was Alden Philip Marks.) As your grandma always told the story, she knew she had to marry someone before she got much older and your grandpa asked so she agreed. She made it sound as if it didn’t matter who asked her since she knew she couldn’t marry Carl.

I think grandma believed all men were as industrious, shrewd and level-headed as was her father; she must have been sorely disappointed when she realized your grandpa, while not unwilling to accept his responsibilities, hated the factory grind, and while he did march off to war with his brothers, his political opinions caused him in later years to tell us he was the best potato peeler in the Army--and was proud of it, man! Yes, my dad’s work ethic and political views just weren’t McCoy and I truly wonder how two people as mismatched as my parents were ever married.

(My dad, Alden Philip Marks, painting a portrait of your grandma, around 1953.)

I loved your grandpa so very much. He was an artist, a poet, a thinker, and he suffered (as did many members of the Marks clan) from what used to be called Melancholia. Your grandpa’s mother, Leah, took to her bed at least once in her life when your great-grandfather Philip ran off with one of his students. What a cad.

(Left—My paternal grandparents, Philip and Leah Marks with their first children, Albert and Juanita around 1900. Right—My maternal grandmother, Bertha Edith McCoy taken around 1910.)

Your grandpa Marks’ nephew and my cousin, Roy Allen (as we always called him) died from an overdose of barbiturates after his marriage failed. Another of my cousins, Brenda put a shotgun to her stomach and pulled the trigger with her foot after battling depression when she was barely 16 years-old. Brenda’s mother, your great-aunt Elizabeth, was institutionalized for many months and was administered 13 electroshock treatments before returning to her home. Your grandpa’s sister Murdayne actually managed her depression remarkably well throughout her life thanks to her devotion to her religion, but when she was in her 40’s she was made aware of the concept of chemical brain imbalance and discovered medication which literally changed her life. (Isn’t this uplifting?! Don’t worry; it gets worse.) Your uncle Jon let your aunt Carol and I know for years that the day would come when he’d take his own life, but ironically he died just shortly after finally seeking help for his depression. And, of course, we could write a book about your Aunt Carol’s maladies. Sorry Katie—you may be genetically screwed! Just kidding; I think you’re tougher than the Marks’ when it comes to mental health. Maybe those genetics bypassed you and you got the McCoy-Walsh mental health genetics. Of course, that too could have its drawbacks. Scotch-Irish, hmmm. Might be a problem, especially with Todd thrown into the mix. You shall overcome.

I’m sure that when your grandma (We used to call her the wildebeest behind her back!) married your grandpa she was ignorant about the mental health issues which plagued the Marks family. She thought that when your grandpa came back from his stint in the army he’d get a good job, they’d move out of the projects into a nice little home and she’d live happily ever after. But by the time your Aunt Carol was 6 years-old and your Uncle Jon was born, they still hadn’t left the East Barberton Homes. A year-and-a-half later I came along. By the time I turned five your grandma had had enough of your grandpa’s inability to fulfill her fantasies of a better life and she told him to hit the bricks. My memories of that period are extremely fuzzy. I loved your grandpa, and as is typical of children faced with such trauma, I began to hate your grandma for forcing your grandpa out of my life.

I gradually developed additional reasons for hating grandma. After she dumped your grandpa she brought out all the implements of torture your grandpa refused to use on us while he was still present: switches, yardsticks, hairbrushes, anything she could grab with which to beat us. Sometimes she hit us so hard (across our legs usually), the weapon would break and she’d have to grab another tool. And we were too afraid to run; we didn’t know if running might not cause her to actually grab us and kill us—what do children know? Her own father beat his children with a razor strap so she saw no shame in her actions. She screamed at us, swore at us, often barely seemed to be able to stand looking at us, and was the Queen of Sarcasm. But the worst thing (in my opinion) was the way she always let us know she never loved your grandpa. I really hated her for that.

Amazingly, this same woman introduced us to classical music, brought home wonderful library books, always made Thanksgiving and Christmas special, and provided us with food, clothing and shelter without much outside assistance. Of course, I was only able to appreciate those things when I became an adult. Still, the five year-old child who lives in my head and comes to talk to me sometimes says things like, Why did my mother hate me? and, Why did my mother make my beloved father leave? and, Man, my mom was really fucked up! Oops, that slipped.

Getting back to the Marks genealogical data, I think I’m going to add some stuff here about my own battles with depression and suicidal tendencies that might become necessary information someday; I could be wrong, but over the years I’ve found some relief in knowing that my psychological oddities weren’t always my fault.

(This is a photo of your grandpa Marks after grandma dumped him. She probably wouldn’t have dumped Ray Milland.)

Probably the first time I ever thought about suicide I was about 13. I was home alone one day, having convinced grandma I was sick enough to miss school. I was sitting on my bed and staring out my bedroom window, crying and agonizing because I knew there was no way in hell Cynthia Lennon was going to give John up and let me have him. I got one of grandma’s double-edged razor blades from the medicine cabinet, went back to my bed and very cautiously scratched my wrist with it several times before I realized I was too big of a chicken to actually cut. I also knew that if I cut myself, but didn’t die, grandma would kill me for getting blood on the bedspread.

That was in the early 1960’s and I knew nothing about the cry for help variety of suicide, but in later years I came to understand the concept quite well.

I also remember being much younger than 13 and, if not actually thinking about suicide, wishing I could erase myself from existence or possibly going to wherever one goes to live with God. I’d sit in grandma’s car during rainstorms and read the bible and sing Jesus Loves Me. Sometimes, in happier moments, I’d sing show tunes! When grandma wasn’t in one of her sadistic moods she’d take us to see movies of (among other things) Rodgers & Hammerstein musicals and I loved them. She had all the soundtracks and we listened to them quite often. I’d sit in the car, or up in my favorite dead tree (there was a big, gray dead tree out in a field near where we lived and I developed some sort of bizarre affinity for the thing) and sing Bali Hai, and Some Enchanted Evening. I had to go places where no one would hear me. I guess South Pacific was my favorite in the Rogers & Hammerstein repertoire. I even got a copy of the manuscript from the library and read it. When I got to the part where Bloody Mary is calling Lieutenant Cable a stingy bastard I asked grandma what a stingee (as in bee sting) bastard (emphasis on the tard) was. We were in the car at the time and I was reading the book in the back seat and your Uncle Jon was riding shotgun. Grandma whipped around with a WHA-WHA-WHAT!? like Mrs. Brofloski in South Park and nearly wrecked the car. Jon was laughing so hard I’m surprised he didn’t fall out. He was only a year and a half older than I was, but being a boy and living in the projects he’d already been introduced to much profanity.

I also read quite a lot of Edgar Allan Poe. I was a maudlin little thing, Katie, and tended to keep to myself because I didn’t like being teased about my red hair, bucked teeth, freckles and fat.

I’m not sure how I began to understand that grandma also wished I could have been erased from existence, but she did ultimately verbalize that wish when I was 15. I’m sure I told you this story: I desperately wanted to date one of Jon’s co-workers named Ted Jones. God! he was gorgeous. I sneaked out on a date with him and somehow grandma found out about it. That rat Jon probably told her. (I must admit, it’s nice to remember that he didn’t want anyone to touch his sister.) When I came home she slapped me across the face and said she wished I’d died before I was born. (Bitch, I hate that bitch.) Of course, just to make sure I was good and screwed up she then hugged me and told me she loved me. I swear to God, that was the only time I can ever remember her telling me she loved me.

But I suspect my date with Ted wasn’t the only reason she wished I’d been stillborn. It seems that after she had the perfect combination of children, i.e., one girl and one boy spaced in age so as to allow the girl to look after her little brother, I came along quite unexpectedly. I understand having two children in diapers can be hellish and back then there was no such thing as disposable diapers (or anything else disposable, for that matter) and she couldn’t afford a diaper service. She, being a clean-freak, must have spent so much time washing diapers (and everything else) that I’m surprised she ever slept. Who knows; maybe that’s why she divorced my dad; she was tired of providing services for an adult who related better to his children than to his wife, which is also why I loved him so much. Dad was fun; Mom was not.

So over the years, especially during the worst of my alcoholism, I thought about, and attempted suicide several times, I’m sorry to report. But if the notion ever occurs to you or to any of your descendents who might be reading this, let me just say, it’s a curse! Talk to someone! Oh, wait—remember your Walsh genealogy! Walshs never commit suicide! They love and value themselves far too much. Also, don’t become a drunk! Katie, I’m sure you lucked into the Walsh gene there too; as far as I know Todd wasn’t obsessive-compulsive about anything other than his own image in the mirror. He drank, but wasn’t an alcoholic. When I miraculously stopped drinking in 1992 I, for the most part, began learning how to deal with life’s harsh realities without thoughts of taking the easy way out. And speaking of Walsh genealogy, onto the REAL tragedy--the story of your father’s role in all this:

(Todd Walsh, your sperm-donor. Sorry.)

As you sort of already know, I met your father in 1968 at a coffee house in Akron. At that time the ‘hippies,’ or ‘freaks,’ as some of us preferred to be labeled, sort of picked up where the beatniks left off, I suppose. Anyway, at that time I was working in Akron with a girl who was a year ahead of me at Barberton High School. One day she asked me if I’d ever gone to The Berth (that was the name of the coffee house). I said I hadn’t and she asked me if I’d like to go with her the following Friday, which was September 12th. The reason I remember the date is that when I met your father it also happened to be his birthday. He’d just turned 22 and I was 17.

(One of my favorite albums at that time.)

Todd was working as the doorman that night. As I recall, there was a window in the door, so when he saw anyone through the window he’d get up from his chair and open the door. I think he probably volunteered for the job so he might have first crack at the girls who came in. Underneath his charming veneer he was . . . hmmm . . . a drooling wolf? Oh, hell, I guess every guy in the place was looking to get laid. So he opened the door and, so help me God, I was instantly smitten. I remember it like it happened yesterday. I have no way to explain it, but anytime anyone has ever said to me, There is no such thing as ‘love at first sight. my response is always something like, Let me tell you about love at first sight. . . .

Anyway, as we went through the door, I unintentionally (I swear!) brushed against him and said, Excuse me. He said, Why? What’d ya do? Yes, by golly, those were the very first words spoken between your father and me. Isn’t that romantic? My friend Lynn and I then went in and sat at one of the tables.

I don’t remember much about what went on inside the place. I mean, it was sort of a dry night club for folk musicians and there was some sort of entertainment happening, but I was focused on Todd, the doorman.

The next thing I remember was being back in the vicinity of the door hoping he’d notice me and say something to me—-anything. He was reading Conan the Barbarian (Jesus! I cannot believe I’m remembering all this crap like it happened last week!). I asked him what the book was about. (Like I cared. I was probably thinking something like, I didn’t know they actually took comic books and turned them into novels.) So he began to tell me all about the wonderful, fictional world of Conan, while I thought things like, Oh yes! This man will be spending the rest of his life with me. and, Jesus Christ! Will you just please ask me for my phone number?! Please? I think he finally picked up on my feigned interest (in Conan anyway), and asked me how old I was. I was sorely tempted to say I was 18 because he looked so much older than me and I was afraid he’d shoo me away if I said I was still legally a minor. But for some Protestant reason I told the truth. He then told me it was his birthday and asked me to guess how old he was. Now, Katie, what can I say; the man must have already done a lot of drugs by then because, I swear, I thought he was 45, but to be nice I said, 35? He nearly fell off his chair. He said something like, God damn! Do I really look that old? I’m only 22. (What could I say? Maybe, No, you don’t really look that old; you look older.") But I was relieved that he was nearer my age. As it was, I knew your grandmother was going to have a fit if she ever got a look at him. But I was TEERULY smitten at first sight.

I must reluctantly admit (because it sounds so. . . icky), that looking back, he did possess some characteristics which reminded me of my father and my brother. I certainly wasn’t thinking about that at the time. But I don’t suppose there’s anything wrong with being attracted to someone who looks like a member of your own clan. And he was just so outrageously self-confident and cute in his hippy garb. He was a little like a peacock, I think. And I suppose I was a little like a peahen; I felt I had nothing to strut, but I was certainly attracted to (and maybe envious of) his plumage. Man this is too vivid, so maybe I should stop for now. I love you and miss you.

January 2nd, 1999

I’m back. Ron is downstairs watching The History Channel, or as we call it, The Hitler Channel. I cannot believe they’ve made so many programs about Adolph Hitler and still keep coming up with new ones. Why are so many people (like Ron) so fascinated? Tonight on the History Channel: Hitler’s favorite pair of shoes. They never run out of stories to tell about that Nazi.

Back to The Berth. I’m not certain about this, but I think your father eventually asked me if I wouldn’t like to write my phone number down on the inside cover of his book so that he could call me and continue telling me why I should be interested in Conan. I’d had a few boyfriends by then, but I’m sure I didn’t feel capable of flirting with someone as worldly as Todd seemed to be. I don’t know; I think I was naively in awe of him, so I was probably thinking that if he called me at all it really would be to discuss that damn book. That’s about where my memory of that night ends, but I’m sure I went home and stayed awake half the night imagining what it would be like to be alone with that fool. I probably hovered close by the phone the following week. That was back in the days when most people had only one phone and possibly one extension phone. And I’m not talking about a separate line, but an extension off the original! Girls would hold their breath every time the phone rang, hoping it was---HIM! Back then, girls who called boys instead of waiting for boys to call them were considered ‘fast’ and potentially ‘loose,’ so I couldn’t call Todd. I didn’t become fast and loose until much later! Snark.

But he called, and we started up a sort of routine dating schedule which, if I recall was something like the following: Friday nights were ‘sometimes’ nights because we each often had other things going on. Saturday nights we’d maybe get something to eat (I, of course, being in love usually just watched him eat.) and often times we’d go to a movie. Sometimes we’d visit his strange (to me) friends, and go to the Berth or one of the coffee houses in Kent. Wednesdays we might go to the Berth or visit friends; if memory serves, Wednesdays