March | 2005 | cloudbum's Xanga Site

for the last several years now i have related to a few select people
here and there the sad story of my uncle rick. while this
story is long, it is worth reading perhaps in the way that “house of
sand and fog” or “million dollar baby” are worth watching. in
high school he was a popular guy, loved by everyone because he was so
genuinely friendly open and honest. it was a kind of honesty and
gulibility that inspired trust. naturally then, he became a
salesman because as he said , he had the “gift of gab.” and the
end of high school though, he got tied down by the first woman who came
along. she was a quiet, cold hands kind of girl who saw big $
signs over his head. she also saw though, from the tutelage of
her mother, that men were evil and should be dominated, abused, and
belittled to keep them in line. my parents relate how they once
had the sad experience of meeting her parents. her father was one
of the nicest men ever, got along with everyone, funny and soulful. and
yet everywhere they went, his wife would sit at the other end of the
table telling everyone how worthless her husband was. and so my
uncle rick’s wife grew to believe that was the way of the world.

at the age of 17 she started doing his laundry, and cooking for
him. but she also started taking his paychecks, and handling all
the finances. rick never really learned how to live because his
wife did it for him. still though, he was successful at work and
could pay the bills. while such a relationship might seem cute at
first, they often tend to lead to a loss of respect. when the
woman realizes her man is helpless on his own it’s hard to really be
attracted to him. by the time they got around to having children,
she had kicked him out of the masterbedroom and banished him to a
distant room. i visited their house perhaps only once when i was
young, but it was an eerie kind of place. i remember at the time,
only being perhaps 8 years old, that there was something not quite
right in the air and i had this strong urge to get out fast.

she dutifully raised the children to hate their father for no other
than reason than the fact that she somehow hated him. and yet of
course it was a love hate relationship, because he paid the
bills. she yelled at him to make more money, so he did. but
soon, with a house full of children raised to hate their father and an
angry bitch of a wife it wasn’t the most friendly of places for him to
be. in large part he was banished to his room, where he would sit
at nights watching a small 9″ black and white television, alone.
he would eat tv dinners, and imagine what it would be like to have a
loving family. he liked to think he had a loving family, but when
he went he left his room to go the bathroom, the children would stare
and leer. as they got older, they learned how to cuss and would
call him a “worthless piece of shit” etc… trying to find
something to pass the time in those miserable late 80′s, early 90′s..
rick went through police academy to become a part-time cop as a
supplement to his day job 1) because his wife always wanted more money
and 2)it gave him something to do at night besides sit in his room
alone.

rick had a lot of fun being a cop at night, and he liked to volunteer
for the worst neighborhoods for some reason. everyone worried
that a big dopey white guy would be killed instantly in the mexican
barrio, but as it turned out he was simply too nice and too gulible,
kinda like barney fife, to ever be seen as much of a threat. on
several occaisons, he had long friendly conversations with armed gunmen
on the run, after which he would let them go, never being the
wiser. eventually the police department realized he was too nice
and gullible to be a cop, so they let him go. when you are cop
these days, you purchase your own sidearm and it is registered to you
for life. he kept it somewhere in his little room for many years
afterward. meanwhile, his wife continued to pile on nonsensical
demeaning and hurtful rules. for example, she kept him on a
strict allowance of 5 dollars a week. he was not allowed any
discretionary income whatsoever. if he wanted a cheeseburger, he
woudl have to think long and hard because it would be the only one of
the week. also, though he worked close to home and could visit on
lunch breaks, he was barred from entering the house between 7am and
6pm. personally, i suspect his wife must have been banging the
pool boy or something, but he dutifully obliged. his wife of
course, never held a job in her life. she was above
working. but simaltaneously, rick never made enough money.
he was making a 130k a year on only a hs degree, and yet she still
bitched they were poor. of course, the kids all got new cars…
but the wife told rick that they were paying for their brand new 30k
cars on their part time jobs at starbucks. hey, what can i say,
rick was gullible. also, his wife frequently went on vacation to
the bahamas, the carribean etc… but of course rick was never
invited. he was forbidden from family vacations. the
children had everything, but rick had nothing.

as the kids grew older into their teens, they became even more abusive
and rick became even more depressed. he came from a big family
with loving parents and siblings and so he just couldnt’ understand why
he couldn’t have it himself with his own wife. eventually the
room became so lonely out of boredom he began to drink. if i were
in his shoes, i woulda gone straight to black tar heroin. but
nonetheless, he fell into a few beers at first. then a six
pack. afterall, there wasn’t much else for him in life.
soon though his wife began to count the beer cans pile up, and it gave
her even more reason to hate him. she called him in a worthless
drunk, so he checked himself into AA. at least he had something
to do now, something besides work and his little room. and so
things went for many years… weekly AA meetings. he would come
to the numerous family events of ours, but of course his wife and kids
never came. they were forbidden from seeing anyone on his side of
the family. i never really knew my cousins, other than the fact
that they were a buncha worthless ungrateful mother fuckers.
eventually as the 2000′s rolled around, rick began to realize that the
last 30 years of his life had been wasted. he was 50 and had
nothing to show for it even though he had a good job and a wife and
kids. it slowly began to build in him, until christmas 2004 he
confessed to my grandparents and i and the rest of our family that he
was miserable and should get a divorce. we all told him, it was
about damn time, we all hated the bitch. time went on and he
began to realize how truly miserable he was, but he still didn’t leave
the bitch. he felt duty bound to be the provider, even though the
kids were grown now the oldest son 22, the daughter 20. it took a
long time, but he slowly realized there was nothing there left for him.

this summer he decided he needed a new hobby, and had always dreamed of
finally learning to play golf. afterall, it might help with his
job. but he didn’t want to do it alone, so i agreed to
share private lessons with him. once a week all summer, we would
go out to our lesson. after a few weeks of me telling him, he
might as well dump the bitch, he has nothing left… he began to refer
to her as his “ex-wife.” i thought it was a big moment, and was
excited for him. finally he could be free. come fall, years
after any any normal man would have abandoned such a hell hole, he
finally moved out. he got a nice apartment downtown, and a big
tv. he marvelled at how nice a 27″ tv was in comparison to all
those years watching his 9″ black and white. he started to meet
women at the gym, i was really happy for him. his life was
starting over. several women were crazy about him. he felt
like a teenager again. he found new joy in shopping, in getting
to eat what he wanted. in being able to go out and go dancing and
the local club, he hadn’t danced since high school. certainly his
wife never danced with him.

he took a new job working sales for a third rate korean flexible
circuit company but the pay was good. they required him to have
an office somewhere, being the american rep, so he moved in to my
parents little building to take the extra office. rick never
really stopped talking, so sometimes it got on my parents nerves.
but still, he was my mom’s brother, and his drama was my parents drama
too. it was like the weekly sitcom, ‘what’s new in rick’s
life’ the company was going under though, and it was hard
to sell their stuff. they refused to send samples, they screwed
up orders, they never gave quotes. that’s just not how business
works. even in my job, i’m getting quotes all the
time. that’s how business works. but somehow, this korean
company was surprised that rick wasn’t instantly landing them big
deals. somehow, he still made them money, but it wasn’t good
enough for them. he told them big deals took time. so at
christmas, they fired him. rick had always prided himself in
being a provider, it was the one thing he could be proud of. but
then he had nothing. most of our family though, thought it was a
good thing… with a divorce and wut not… maybe it would bring his
wife some humility to lose her golden goose. but deep down rick
was embarassed and devestated. he didn’t tell any of the girls he
was seeing…. kept it a secret. he would come to “work” and sit
around all day. make a few phone calls.

rick had always prided himself in being self sufficient, but when the
money stopped he had no where to turn. so he turned to his parents (my
grandparents) who have a lot of money and are supporting the entire
rest of my mom’s brothers (that’s like 6 of htem or something)
earlier this week my grandparents had a conversation with him, telling
him that he couldn’t just go on supporting him, he’d have to find a
job. he had offers of 80k plus commission, but he didn’t want to
take it. he was too proud and wanted a straight up 130k. my
grandparents thought it was getting silly, and told him to
settle. so what if his bitch wife got a little less money.
his half would still be more than he had known for years. they
also told him they were worried about him drinking again.

and so yesterday, it was a non-eventful day spinning around in his
chair at his office… he did tell my mom that he felt bad taking my
grandparents money, but my mother told him not to worry…their parents
(my grandparents) had plenty of money. but so then he parted ways
with my parents at around 5pm, business as usual. but when he
left work, he didn’t go home to his apartment. instead he headed
a few miles south down by Angel’s stadium in anaheim and checked
himself into an embassay suites.

at 6pm he called the anaheim police department, ironically some police
buddies of his were on duty there. he told them that he would be
killing himself and that they had better come and clean up the
body. as the anaheim police sped towards the hotel, they
realized it was already too late. calls were flooding in the from
the hotel about a gunshot. the cops burst into the room, but he
was dead upon arival. the police called my grandparents to inform
them, and they didn’t believe it. they prayed somehow he must
have missed, this was after all old bumbling gullible rick who used to
stutter as a child. my parents drove my grandparents down to the
anaheim coroner at which point they learned what had happened.

my sister returned home at 9pm from work to find an empty house with no
lights on. then she recieved a call from my cousin who had just
heard. she then called me. i was sitting in a bar 30 miles
south, drunk with a buncha my coworkers. i was telling them the long
sad story of how i almost died from my heart thing. i had just
gone outside for a cig and felt surprisingly dizzy, like the world was
collapsing down upon me. it was a weird feeling and i remember feeling
overwhelmed. it was extra creepy because i felt just like the
time i ran down to see my horse. i looked my horse in the eyes,
and he had the sadest look i have ever seen. one that haunts me
today. it was the last look he gave as he fell down and
died. it was the look of death. as i recall now, i felt
this yesterday as 6:15pm. there was something strange in the
air, but i brushed it off. i remember vividly this feeling last
night, but not knowing why, i’d had a 2 beers, but it was something
more… i didn’t find out till much later though. in hindsight,
it’s creepy. what was it that i felt? but anyway at 9pm i
politely informed them that i must part ways and sped off.
perhaps it was the booze in me, or perhaps it was that feeling that
maybe if i drove fast enough i would make it home to find him the
hospital still alive, uttering some last words. i swerved through
lanes in the rain at 130mph crossing in and out of the carpool
lane. cars flashed their highbeams at me. i knew it was
retarded and that there was no point. he was dead. but i
also knew i had Z-rated rain tires and that i could pull it off.
it’s pretty lame, but at a time like that, you just feel like you have
to do something. but there was nothing i could do, so i sped home. i
made it home in record time. when i got home, my parents were
already home. i hugged my mother and we cried. i cried for
her though, not for him but i didn’t tell her that. they had
already heard the whole story from the coroner. they found with
him an envelop full of letters. he had meticulously written out
notes to everyone he could think of. he detailed who he owed money to,
and who should be paid. he must have been planning this for a
while now to have so many letters. some were typed, some where
handwritten. the rest though, i don’t know yet because they
letters have to stay overnight with the police since its’ a crime
scene. afterward, my parents went back to the office to inspect
his office. he had left his cell phone and laptop neatly arranged
on his desk. he NEVER went anywhere without them. had they
entered his office that evening, they woudl have known… but it
woudln’t have mattered, they wouldn’t have known how to find him.
on his desk spread out was a giant tree of his previous company.
there was a box with his name in it with an arrow pointing up to head
of all sales. for him, it was the pinnacle of his career.
he was almost the number one salesman- at two, poised for one.
but he never made it, instead of moving him up, they let him go. death
of a salesman.

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Month: March 2005

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