An autobiograhy of James Arthur Casey (Part 7)
originally written on September 18, 1995
Slightly revised on August 25, 2021
She walked away from home, from her family, when I was 17 years old. It took me by surprise. Sure, things had been bad with lots of arguing but that had been going on for so long maybe I'd become immune to it. I can't say how well Charles took it but I do know that we both fared MUCH better than my old man. He was devastated. I t was like the only thing in the world that mattered to him was gone. In my time I've fallen on many black days but that one was probably the absolute worst, most likely a contributing factor to dark days to come.
It was bad enough I had to watch my father cry like a baby. I didn't feel sorry for him at the time. I'd become used to it and it made me angry. He was convinced that my mother would only listen to me - if I'd only speak to her I could convince her she should come home (a lot like dragging me into an argument, don't you think?) What he couldn't/didn't want to see was that it was a useless hope thata they could ever live together again. Their love had died years ago, maybe it wasn't all my fault or my brother's fault after all... Who knows but that their love had been dead ever since the time we were babies? Does that happen? Of course it does. I never heard either one of them say "I love you" to one another. Hell, I don't think I heard my dad say them to ME more than 10 times in his life but what are they but words, right? Three stupid little words that don't seem to add up to much unless you put them in the proper order. By the time he'd come around to saying them to me it was difficult to hear them. They just didn't seem natural coming from his lips (or my mom for that matter because she wasn't one to say them much either, if at all).
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To this day I know so little about my parents... one of the reasons I've been writing this bio is so that my daughter Aubrey Lynn and my son Bryan James might know me better than I knew my own dad.
My father insists that my mother was unfaithful to him. This is very possible because she certainly wasn't satisfied by him. She denies this and I have to believe her but what then? Why would my dad make up a story about catching another man in the closet? That's exactly what he told me, that he'd found this "other man" in their bedroom. When I last saw my mother (it's been years ago) I confronted her with this accusation and she laughed like I was telling a joke on the Carol Burnett show. WTF, right?
So she denies the accusation...is she being honest or does she not want me to know the Truth? I can understand that, I suppose, but it's hard not knowing my pa wasn't delusional, now that he's been gone for so long and I can't talk about these things. God knows I would have talked to him about it whenever he'd let me, but then again I'm sure he wouldn't want me to dredge it up so often as I might. I'm ashamed to say that we got into a few arguments not too long before he died and I'm even more concerned because they seemed like old times, like we were doing what we were supposed to be doing. Only these arguments were different because I'd already proven that I could be a decent father to my own son having been given the opportunity, the blessing, the responsibility, having it thrust upon me. Knowing what love feels like once again, Love, capital L.
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(I've veered from the original manuscript somewhat, now I will return to 1995, so some dates may be off)
Does it even matter? It's been over a year since I last saw my mother. I know where she lives and it's not far from my where I live now - so why don't I go visit? I'm not mad at her. Her second husband, who never liked me and the feeling was mutual, the man she left my circle for is dead now so I can't use him for an excuse for not at least checking on her.
I suppose some part of me is still pissed off at her for walking away. For putting me in the position I wound up in. Surely she had no idea that my dad would carry on like he did. Surely she didn't expect me to carry such an enormous burden... She says I could have come and stayed with her had I wanted, at least that's how I remember some kind of choice being offered back in 1977. I don't think of it as a choice these days but I guess it was and I also have to consider that I made that choice to stay with my father and that there was no turning back for any of us.
I was too naive to realize that she'd already put the divorce in motion. I remember thinking she was starting a new life and had nothing, not even a place of her own, which was only half true, I just wasn't privy to the "where" of this domicile, at least not at first. She gave me the address and let me drive to OKC to visit her anytime I wanted, she gave me stuff just like my dad gave me stuff to go fetch her for him. She gave me a cool new suit that made me look like a new romantic with my long hair finally straightening out. I was looking pretty damn good in those days but I couldn't see it because I wasn't looking at through the right "lens". My mother saw it. My first girlfriend/wife Barbara McLaughlin saw it. We drag the pictures out nowadays and my beloved wife Stacie sees it. What's most important though is that *I* see it now. When I was free, when I was given the freedom to make myself whatever I wanted to be I was happy in the midst of all the chaos that was going on around me. I pretended I was in a band when I was a kid and I never stopped pretending and look what I got. A talent for drumming, singing, playing soprano, alto, baritone saxophones, keyboards (though I never learned to play with music), and now a new suit my mom bought for me at one of the malls in Oklahoma City... I remember getting a Clash button from Friends Records when they were only located in Norman, OK and wearing it on the lapel of my suit jacket, skinny tie and all. [Those "tacky" badges were really cool, you could show your respect for your favorite band by wearing them in your coat, shirt, wherever a sharp pin wouldn't jab you...the import copy of Joy Division's double album Still had one of these pins included and it was my pride and joy in 1980, the design on the pin was the cover art for the band's first proper LP Unknown Pleasures... I went on to be the biggest Joy Division fan in Oklahoma.]
As for my mother...she never asked for custody and therefore she didn't have to fight for it. That's the black and white of it. That's the stuff I didn't understand at 15 years of age. I knew what divorce was... I had seen Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep in "Kramer vs. Kramer" at the Ritz theater in Shawnee (or it may have been the Penthouse theater a couple of blocks away) so I had at least some kind of experience with the concept of the ravages of divorce, even if it was only a movie... it was a great movie and I recommend it to anyone whose children (and grown up children) might have a hard time understanding the pain of the "big D".
(I only have one more page of the original manuscript for this autobioraphy so I'll probably dig deeper into my hand written archives for future facebook and blogger posts. Just so you know, they aren't all in this biography form but there is much there to laugh and cry at. If you've been keeping up with these posts I can only say thank you. It makes me feel better knowing that I'm not the only one who understands or who might wish to understand. And I'm not.
Peace OUT!
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