Chapter Twenty – Nine
“That Woman Deserves Her Revenge.”
“And we deserve to die.” –– Sidewinder Budd as portrayed by Michael Madsen in Tarantino’s 2003 Kill Bill II
A smidgen of digression near the end of that last, wee chapter perhaps –– a leap of around a decade or so,
a leap of not just one extra day as in some Februarys. It did end though. That chapter –– The Opera.
It did but not without one last Andrew Lloyd Weber – like pouf. Actually it felt more like a sound fillip to
the skull’s temple –– as if it had emanated from the small but malevolent mitts of little bullies on an
elementary school’s playground. There was a 13 September 1994 filing –– upwards one more level ––
from that Iowa Court of Appeals fiasco wherefrom Judge Pansy Shawshank and her lone cohort in dishing
out Truth and Justice, brand newly appointed Judge Barry L. Crowrook, as The Majority who the two of
them actually were in their having just decided that I HAD WON MY APPEAL! and should have Herry
Edinsmaier’s taking stopped, were, on ‘my case’, never to be heard from again! Sent up to the State of
Iowa Supreme Court on that date now only two weeks shy of Mirzah Truemaier’s 15th birthday went a
document which initially stumbled along as almost all of the gazillions of documents before it had,
“COMES NOW … ”
“COMES NOW the Appellant – Respondent, Dr. Legion True, pursuant to the Iowa Rules of Appellate
Procedure nos. 16a and 402 and in support of her APPLICATION FOR FURTHER REVIEW BY THE
IOWA SUPREME COURT, argues as follows:
1. that in the allotted 20 days in which to request such Application for Further Review, Appellant
Dr. True wanted to hire an attorney to represent her in this Argument before the Iowa Supreme Court
against the 25 August 1994 Court of Appeals Majority Opinion; but at the requested retainer price of
$8,000.00 by the Mot Yelir Law Firm of Cedar Rapids, she not only has no such money, but she knows
of no one of her (ordinary) friends or working class parents who would have such money for themselves
in such a situation, let alone, be able to loan her such money. Therefore, extremely reluctantly but
necessarily, Dr. True appears in this Application and Brief pro se –– again –– realizing that IF she had had
the money, then that Firm, which rarely, if ever, loses, would have taken on her struggle. There has to be
hope in that message.”
It, the Application to the Supreme and final appellate Court of Iowa, continued through 13 more major
points and a total of 17 pages with The (TRUE MAJORITY’s, that is, Shawshank’s and Crowrook’s)
Dissent in its six pages appended, word – for – word, as well. At the time of this writing, I had forgotten it
all –– until once more rereading that Brief all again! It was fucking damned good in my estimation ––
even now! Pro frickin’ se though this last fling, too, had had to be flung by me to ‘the Courts’ full up of all
of daMen! The one sentence out of its entirety that sticks out the most to me now, however? Its last one,
the underscored sentence of Point #1 in the above paragraph, “There has to be hope in that message.”
Uh – uh. Now? Now, I am changed. “A changed individual,” Dr Bassenthwaite in her Sixth Floor
SpaChezResort’s diagnostic analysis had charted regarding so sleep – deprived, then fully rested Legion ––
after my ~72 hours’ worth of induced and constant slumber. After those three necessary nights and days of
uninterrupted somnolence. And I say, “Uh – uh! No mother – fucking way is there any such thing!
Hope? HOPE is a woman – killer. The deadliest ever.
File – stamped the 04th day of November 1994, The Opera was all over. Indeed. All over. For good and
forever done with. Fin. Arriving in that Havencourt mailbox inside the truly skinniest envelope harboring
but one single page, if even a whole sheet at that, I pretty much knew it, too, that there was to be … no more.
Acceptance? Well, I didn’t even think on whether or not I had to accept that there was to be no more.
No more … hope. Just the knowing of no more was what was fairly deeply settling within.
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Again, only the one sentence. The ‘order’ as the lone page was actually and arrogantly entitled might as
well have been one mere upswept stroke of then – Chief Justice Arthur MacGyver’s pen marking a little
check – off box beside a standard set of responses on some fucking template form! “After consideration
by this court en banc, further review of the above – captioned case is hereby denied.” With there to be
absolutely no applause, no bows and most certainly no script or score encores … then, the Opera’s …
Final Curtain … descended.
NO matter the weally, weally wee thingy –– woman – wise, that is –– that 23 of the 25 guardians of the
United States Constitution at Pillar – Kingy Herod Edinsmaier’s dictum, at daMan’s patriarchal whininess,
had just wholly and soooo, so easily and androcentrically mother – fucked over one (more) wild and …
crazy whore. A Majority of these justices had just ruled in the mama’s favor? Two out of the three who
had actually ‘heard’ and ‘sort of’ slightly … knew … ‘my case’? Why –– Hell … daJudge Chieftain
Donnellson of Iowa’s lower appellate court, (“They ask themselves!” American Gigolo had snidely
chortled in response to how it is these pillared men seem to know that they are … “above the law”)
just disguised it all over in to … A Dissention –– bada bing, bada bang, bada boom! Noooo problem! ––
Done. Fuck her. NO matter that.
The woman had simply pissed off all but one of DaMen, ‘holy’ ones and so – otherwise ones, all of ‘em …
just ooooone too, too many times. NO matter that. She? That Bitch? The Bitch gets it. She gets …
gutted. Fin.
*
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*
Jesse had already scored a touchdown in junior varsity football. And, unfortunately … had already been
penalized after its doing, too! It seems he jumped up and down too much from the glee of it all –– or some
such stupid rule violation –– so that the referees put the one – point kick maneuver back another 15 yards
more! The homemade videotape from another mother madly cheering alongside me from the Friday
evening bleachers whose teammate child of Jesse’s I didn’t even know was such a welcome gift; I have fast
– forwarded that tape to his particular play over and over and over just to see Jesse’s reaction after he, with
such muscular pins zipping, zoomed into the end zone. His very first time ever! Crossing the bar, crossing
the line –– that’s what it’s all about –– after all!
And I, his mama? I actually watched my child. I actually saw all of Jesse’s efforts in this endeavor of his.
In a game which I rather loathe otherwise, I was from those Friday – night bleachers engaged with all of its
players. I was not reading a paperback or the newspaper with my eyeballs averted or else their raptly
fixated upon some other man’s globes feigning hooking – up – later glances as so, so many times, from the
Truemaier Boys’ event sidelines of years before, we had all witnessed Sperm – Donor Edinsmaier’s
repeated behaviors. I for my kiddo at such activities? I was there.
Jesse was well – established, too, with Ms. Lee; every Wednesday afternoon for half an hour that almost
always ran overtime, she reiterated for Jesse those fingering scales first learned back in Suzuki long, long
ago. But in such a fun way that of his own accord entirely, he diligently practiced not only willingly but
enthusiastically: Jesse was not always totally prepared for every week’s piano lesson, but he so could have
fooled me!
Rex I had had to bury. And had had to tell Jesse this. Jesse’s Florida king she – snake, and so aptly named
in Latin if but a wee bit off gender – wise, had passed just a few months before Jesse had arrived back on
Havencourt, never awakening from another winter at Dr. Legion True’s 37 – degree Fahrenheit indoor
temperatures. But grayest Zephyr –– the two of us, Jesse and I, reverently remembered to always Frenchily
pronounce the tabby’s name only as ‘Zay – fear’ –– seemed to be, now in his 12th or 13th year, still going
strong. No other pets had we. All of the zebra finches of Zane’s, too, long gone, that last mothering one’s
corpse, from when Lady, as had Rex, had frozen to death on the bottom of her rickety yellow cage, still lay
in a plastic sandwich bag way in the back of the refrigerator’s lower freezer shelf.
With Jesse’s sophomore high school year came the option for such Iowa students to begin, if afforded and
if with a parent’s signed waiver of accountability, driver’s training classes, a semester’s worth. Affordable
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this specialty was for Jesse only because I ignored almost all of my bills and our condominium’s needs in
order to necessarily put down, up front as demanded by school administrators, the course’s full fee of
$285.00 therefor! It is a wonderment to me how single mothers of multiple teenagers, fulltime working
ones, for that matter, and those drawing down sort of living – wage paychecks even, manage such extra
costs for kiddos’ learning desires. ‘Cause Jesse so utterly wanted to be learning to drive and I, as eagerly,
so did not want, for myself, to ever have to deny him this deal!
A loveliest and unexpected side effect appeared for us both one day at my break time at work. The Forestry
Department’s Professor Joseph in conversation then centering upon his own daughter’s earlier experiences
with drivers’ ed in high school simply up and offered to take Jesse, inside the Professor’s own stick – shift
vehicle! mind you, on over to the gargantuan and often deserted Hilton Coliseum parking lot and “jump
around” the concrete of it all, as Dr. Joseph shrugged, for as many times as the lessons take –– and until such
moment as Jesse learns to drive a car powered by a manual transmission! “If you want this for him, Legion?
Ya’ know –– if he has your permission first, Mama.” I was speechless. And thrilled. And now? Now years
later? Jesse knows! Because of … the generosity to me of one Dr. Joseph. Jesse knows of that … as well.
*
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*
Rosalind Franklin came to me one day at work and point – blank flat – out told me, for my own benefit,
that it was her supervisory thinking that I should move on to a higher level of university secretary. There
had taken place serious discussion amongst the bigger wigs with regard to strategic planning for the full
Forestry Department’s next five to ten years; and within those plans, there was not to be, she stated, the
inclusion of any change in classification for my particular spot, Secretary I.
Because of the money –– because of the increase in salary involved, I concurred and so, with a shitload of
sadness at saying goodbye to such trustworthy and loyal people, accepted the earliest Secretary II opening
offered to me –– winding up as graduate advising secretary in charge, administratively, of coordinating all
of the pieces and all of the parts connected to the incoming Graduate College admissions’ applications
specifically to the Department of Economics at Iowa State University. Money was so not my thing;
thinking about money, bottom line or top line or even in between, I managed only to pay my own bills and
think not one more iota’s worth about saving it or investing it or maneuvering it or, gaaawd knows,
spending it! But that is the topic of all lines of a department of economics at any university! AmTaham
had certainly known this; as a matter of fact, this specific department? This one was, indeed, his! His old
alma mater major and department as both an undergrad and as an agricultural business master’s student!
And totally why I had no compunction at all about taking the position beginning as I did right after that
gaunt and bony envelope with its one Iowa Supreme Court ruling – sentence had arrived in my mailbox.
Wonderful people the ISU Department of Economics presented; I must say that I was surprised. They did,
indeed, do an awful lot of thinking and doing and coming and going all surrounding and about money; but
they actually also had some substance and depth, many of them did anyhow, besides, and in addition to, the
classist technicality that there implicitly seems to be in handling money and its matters –– those which so
certainly do gird their little world. I was to learn, in no short order, that their sphere, however, was not so
little after all.
I began work there in early November then and took not one lunch hour’s leave until my supervisor found
out about that and ordered me to do so! By then, since we two were actually officed on separate floors of a
six – story structure with over 30 administrative personnel on all levels, it was mid – February! The pieces
and the parts of graduate applications? The incoming US mail to that specific department –– daily –– was
entirely overwhelming particularly right at those specific months of the year! Everyone and their cousin ––
and especially their Chinese cousins –– were applying in droves for the next autumn’s admitting class of
graduate students, that is for beginning class work in August 1995! It didn’t help me either, under the sacks
and stacks of mail received every day, that that singular department out of all of the academic economics
departments worldwide, happens to be one of the top – rated ones –– both in straight economics and in
agricultural economics, especially in ag econ –– ever. And always! This is agrarian Iowa after all!
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No wonder –– as he so had –– AmTaham True loved it, I am thinking. Anyone who is anyone and who
wants a pillared graduate degree, in money, in the study and in the art of money’s matters, most definitely
could want it labeled as granted her or him from Iowa State University’s Department of Economics.
What I did as work, essentially, was to collate folks’ admission files. I opened mail, sometimes upwards of
four hours’ labor spent in this one maneuver alone –– slicing envelopes and assembling and putting together
their contents with the appropriate, hopeful student’s file. Or starting another brand – new one. Any idea
how many Wangs and Zhangs and Chous and Zhous and Smiths –– all wanting a thorough education in the
use and enjoyment of dollars or other dinero –– have the same first and middle names? How exacting is the
receiving and the correctly compiling together all of the required parts of one person’s admission file,
especially the pieces that were the precise number of different standardized test score results and letters of
recommendation necessary? This careful compilation is not as menial nor as easy as some hoity – toities,
as some too good, too high and too mighty for such day labors’ snots –– such as a certain King and his,
O say, elitist Sheriff of Nottingham, er, … his patrolling Sheriff of Grubtrop –– may presume it to be!
But I had Grace and I had László and I so had Jesse to help me get through that particular winter. There
was one glitch to it, however, –– in addition to the no – heat scenario again. Yes, again –– even with Jesse
now living with me on Havencourt. Jesse rather likened in his mind that living style, that is to say a mother
and her son managing indoors without heat, to be as somehow a major kick in his 16 – year – old,
progressive sense. A sort of suffering – for – the – cause in that we, his ma and he, were quite the energy –
saving, environmentally conscious, socialist Iowans! Or even from the standpoint of the reality that the
two of us were ‘just roughin’ it’ –– a type of backwoodsy, pioneer life such as 19 th Century teenagers must
have experienced –– must have literally survived –– before they and their mothers trudged out of the Sierra
Madres on the westerly side of those snow – socked and – blocked mountain passes come springtime 1847,
… finally!
I suppose that he must have, once or twice, –– although I do not remember Jesse ever performing the actual
act of telephoning and talking to Dr. Edinsmaier nor to his two brothers. Zane and Mirzah, of course, did
not call for social conversing or for any other reason for that matter. Zane had just entered his senior year
in Grubtrop’s high school, and Mirzah accomplished that other of the two most major milestones of high
school –– entering his freshman year! And still I, as mother to both, knew of them and of their comings
and goings and thinkings and doings in West Virginia –– exactly squat. I do not remember if Slacker Herry
actually ever did phone up Jesse even one time either. If Grubtrop’s so – revered Pillar – Daddee
Edinsmaier had, indeed, done so? I would have, I am thinking, remembered that work of his!
I left the condominium at 6:30 a.m. every weekday morning that autumn –– walking over an hour and
a quarter into the University –– for exercise and for discipline. Because of those same two matters,
especially the workout one, Jesse tossed his bicycle into the back of Ol’ Black’s wagon space, then drove
himself, because his learner’s permit now entitled him to do so, into my departmental parking lot with plenty
of time left for him to extract his bike and pedal on to the high school from there, a distance of yet another
two to three miles actually! He would have wheels by which to get home at the end of his school day, and
I would then have the car with which to leave the Econ Department and proceed on to my other jobs.
It was a good plan. I liked that Jesse liked it and, without fail, easily participated in it every day. Piano
practice in the cold was probably for Jesse the hardest part. Other than for that and because of so much else
occurring, Jesse and I were only home on Havencourt Drive long enough to swiftly shower and to fall sleep
under electric blankets. Through those couple of functions then we two seemed to be succeeding.
Deep sorrow befell upon us both, however, the morning after Jesse’s Saturday afternoon, 10 December
piano recital with Ms. Lee. Her eldest student, he sat down on the black bench before the grand of the
Octagon Performing Arts concert hall, the last of all of her students to play. Again I don’t even recall the
title of his polished and perfectly performed piece. And to not only my standing applause, of course, but
also to that of Sterling’s eldest child! Among the many other students’ parents and relatives and friends
attending, Jesse’s older cousin and of course my nephew, too, an ISU student along with his girlfriend,
had both also appeared at the downtown Ames studio to hear Jesse play as well. It was so cold that late
afternoon that even the kickshaws and hot, sweet cocoa were not enough to banish the chill inside that vast,
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darkened assemblage. Good thing then, I guess, that Jesse and I seemed to think it, that recital hall ––
well, rather warm … for us!
We left the Arts center for home pleased and satisfied –– and Jesse smiled. Not a lot. No, never a lot did
I see that on him. Exhausted and now freezing again, off to bed we hibernated until the next morning.
I set out the bowl of fresh victuals for Zephyr and commenced to calling him to it from the front door.
When he failed to appear in five minutes’ time, I put on all of those outer duds and walked up and down the
hood even traipsing through The Pits, the now leafless and barren, snowy backwoods of Grace’s and
Lionel’s condo complex just west of our own Havencourt one.
Two doors down from ours, a neighbor opened his because he had heard me. “You lookin’ for Zephyr,
Legion?” he called to me.
“I am, Web.” I yelled just a little in turning around to answer him. “Seen him? I’m sorry if I bothered
you. We’ve been busy, Jesse and me; and I’ve just now gotten to tending to him.”
“Well, maybe, … ah, maybe I have,” Web stepped carefully toward me and out into the street to avoid all
of the snowbanks in our yards and without putting on any coat for himself. “Legion, yesterday afternoon a
lady, well, she didn’t stop in time on the snow, ya’ know. It was packed down so much it was ice –– and
she, well, ah, well, she couldn’t stop in time she said. There. See there?” He pointed to one, lone, silver
dollar – sized and dirtied blood splatter on the hardened slushiness. I had not noticed this spot before.
“O no, Web. Ya’ think? Ya’ think it was Zephyr, do ya’?!”
“Ya’ know? I do. I’m afraid I do think it was, Legion. I don’t know him that well, o’course. But he’s
gray, right? Has tabby stripes, too, right? I called the Animal Shelter people for her. Didn’t get the
woman’s name though, Legion.”
“Um – hum. O, god. O, god no. Ah, … um, ah, well, thanks, Web. I’ll a … I’ll give the Shelter a call
then. Yeah, that’s what I’ll do. Thanks again, Web. Okay.” And straightaway we both went inside our
condos –– and I did commence to making that most horrible of telephone calls. Or, nearly the saddest.
But, of course, not quite. The saddest I have not yet ever, thankfully, sooo, so thankfully, not ever yet had
myself to hear nor to make: The call regarding such same news on one’s own child, that is.
The worker at the Animal Shelter said she wanted me to be sure, … that I should come on down. And see
for myself.
“No. No, no, no. O, no! I don’t want that memory, Ma’am. Just check those ears of his. The ears,
Ma’am. If they’re notched, ya’ know, badly like, then that’s him all right.” Battered about the ears
our sometime – fearsome but O – so family – friendly feline had been from all of the fights he had won.
Or lost. Who knows. “Just check those ears. Then come back to the phone. I’ll wait.”
It was so. True it was: Zephyr, too, was dead.
Then the glitch. The one true imperfection of that particular winter with Jesse –– and not because of what
he did either. No! It was a problem only because of what would have happened to me and to Jesse if King
Herod had learned of it! Then? Then it was to be one mother – fuckingly massive problem for us both!
The very next week –– that is, yet another of the DEhumanizing debacles during Dr. True’s Decembers.
McFarland Clinic threw for all of us employees its annual winter holiday hoo – hah the Saturday following
the one of Jesse’s recital and of Zephyr’s death and one day before Liar Edinsmaier and I would have had
to have celebrated our … … had we stayed mawwied to each other, of course! … … our 18th wedding
anniversary! On the 18th! Instead, that evening’s party turned out, also, to be just one day before Grace’s
and Lionel’s actual celebration of 23 years of wedded bliss and nearly as many of raising up their three
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sons, Neil, Nathan and Noel. Coincidentally, the very same December date for a wedding anniversary ––
the Portias’ is –– as had been that of the Bitch – Gutter’s and mine!
Always with quite fine food, plenty of it, and free, the Clinic’s yearly gala had been; but I had, before, simply
always typed through it or just been too exhausted from other jobs’ hours and duties as to actually attend.
In late 1994, I did decide to go! Instead of working for child – support bucks that late afternoon, I set to
work on myself: Outfit, shoes, properly accessorized, indeed, couldn’t forget the accessories, hair, make –
up, perfected colors’ coordination, scent and aroma notes to match, the whole enchilada. I “wooked
mahvelwous,” to quote Billy Crystal in his cutesy wizardry of The Princess Bride! One woman very well
put together –– I!
I had a lot of fun that night. Ate and drank and danced. And … looked hot. And did all of that all over again.
And then came home –– all by myself, alone … –– at a most reasonable hour, I am thinking, arriving back
on Havencourt Drive a few minutes shy of 12:30 a.m. on the mighty early morning of my 18th wedding
anniversary. Well, … … NOT! Not that last lit’l’ thingy there!
I tossed the car keys onto the kitchen table and, bracing myself with arms stretched down upon it, did what
every sensible, dancing woman does when she’s done: Kicked off my snow – caked stilettos immediately
right there onto the bare linoleum. When I regained my upright balance and lifted my hands, a piece of
scratch paper from the table, one ripped from a lined notebook, stuck to my left palm. Scrawled in so, so
lightened pencil lead hardly legible were the following words, “Jesse’s on the couch. He isn’t in too good
a shape. Guess he’s had a little bit too much to drink. We brought him home. Jesse’s friends”
To this day, I have no idea who of, nor how many of, ‘Jesse’s friends’ carried him to the sofa; but I flew
around the corner into the black living room and threw on a lamp.
“O, O, … O!”
Jesse looked dead.
Vomitus was everywhere. And he, inside all of his clothes, even his bulky winter coat, was supine!
Any of the emesis could have aspirated into his lungs and maybe some already had! The inside ambient
temperature, of course, hovered at not much higher than around 40 degrees that night, I am estimating.
Frantically, I tried to rouse him as I quite literally heaved him onto his right side, shaking him and nearly
yelling, “Jesse! Jesse! Wake up, Jesse! Jesse! O my god, wake up, Jesse! Wake up! Now!” From him?
From Jesse there was absolutely no outward physical response.
He had a carotid pulse. I could even see –– but barely –– constricted pupils under manually uplifted
eyelids. His cheeks, his fingers … ice – like.
“He is alive so … so … aaah, ah,” I am desperately trying to bring to bear inside my forehead from long –
ago recesses absolutely all of the apropos emergency veterinary and nursing knowledge. The furnace pilot
I had no true idea of how to light! Safely and immediately –– at least. So, it’d have to remain off.
And I would have to do this thing –– this rescue –– without heat at all.
Jesse had one friend, Rufus Adegboi from the neighborhood actually, with whom I knew he had been
practicing the Terpsichore dance theater production to be presented up at the high school in the upcoming
February. Rufus’s mama was also a nurse, a currently working one; but I thought she actually did private
night duty! Plus she had other kids, two or three more, but none tiny anymore. I dialed her and Rufus’s
home desperately wanting her to be there this night and at this time of night. She was. In four minutes’
flat, Paula Adegboi had driven right over. I am thinking Rufus hadn’t been there when my call came in to
her. I’ve never known: maybe he was one of ‘Jesse’s friends’ of the scratched note and maybe Rufus was
still out on the town when his ma entered our living room and was immediately greeted there with the frigid
and fetid stench and squalor from Jesse’s puke.
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“No! I can’t call Mary Greeley!” I had had to answer her in that telephone call. “I’ll tell you why not
when you get here.” Not its emergency room, not its paramedics and not 911. I could not.
Bitch – Gutting Herry would find out.
Utterly surprised I was when Paula Adegboi just accepted that. Right off she simply did not press me one
time more in the next ensuing several hours’ expanse for explanation of why First – Do – No – Harm (Ha!)
Herry’s knowing would be a bad thing. When reminded that he would find out, then she already knew why.
Nurse Adegboi’s only initial reply to me was, “O, Yeah. That’s right. He would, wouldn’t he?”
Both of us recognized alcohol poisoning, and both of us also knew The Great and Wonderful Doctor
Edinsmaier would either himself hightail it straight the hell out to Iowa that very 18 December day ––
paradoxically our non – anniversary, our non – commemoration of mawwying each other at one time!
Or, he would hire someone else to instantly come! To collect Jesse. And … to initiate legal proceedings
against me! For child endangerment or neglect or some such other phony and trumped – up mother – fuck.
The two of us, Dr. True and Nurse Adegboi, most of these massive moments wordless, vigiled all night long.
With Jesse’s mouth cleared of that foul fuck when he went to his side at the first, I repeatedly placed warm,
moist washcloths to Jesse’s fingers and toes which Paula constantly reheated in the microwave.
Not one time did Paula complain about the cold after initially asking me why I “just” didn’t turn up the
heat. She blew on her hands from time to time and, for the most part, remained entirely enveloped inside
more blankets and the winter toggery which I summoned forth for her; but she prevailed. Around 5 in the
a.m. Paula Adegboi left when it became apparent to us both that stabilized Jesse should be coming around
in the next couple of hours or so.
The liver is a wondrous organ: a master detoxifier! I have, as a scientist and as a student of science, always
loved it the most of all of the viscera –– physiologically and, most certainly now, pathophysiologically!
Structurally absolute the deoxyribonucleic acid of it is to its mammalian cells; none of it and its endeavors is
either ethereal or magical or ever operationally responsive to the patriarchally and prayerfully invisible!
None of that 2,870 – some godsy – fuck here, the liver is its own master! Thankfully!
At 7 a.m. –– almost right on the hour –– Jesse coughed, and coughed again, and opened his eyelids ––
blinking several times slowly; I would describe this act of his as more of a slobbery sputter than as a
full – fledged hawk. That came a little bit later, though! I immediately telephoned Paula as I had previously
promised to do. “Of course, he did! Of course, he did!” she exclaimed. She said she was going off to bed
then and that, in fairly short order, perhaps I could do that, too.
*
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*
Nothing short of spectacular, Jesse and the whole posse of troupe performers shined in the dance theater’s
February production of Grease! Flaming red programs with the splash of valentines and smiles all around,
I couldn’t stop grinning, he was so damned cute! In his pure white, muscle tee with the faded, dark blue
dungarees cuffed so neatly at the bottoms! The equally bright white socks and shiny, black patent greaser
oxfords! Then there was that hairdo, too, of course! Fabulously stunning Jesse was, just awesome! Made
me wish I was 16 again! And I hadn’t wanted that awful time of teenaged turmoil and angst back as my
life –– in decades … We captured that Ames High School Terpsichore memory on tape, too.
I am sitting in the audience entirely in the moment. When the curtain fell that night, I had not had one
thought all evening long on just how terribly, terribly close I had come to receiving two months’ time
previously the next, full blast of Hating Herry’s fiery, gut – ripping and – wrenching wrath for Dr. Legion
True. It is so that I, for sure, have never blabbed to King Herod. There has not been even one thought that
I have wanted to wag the entire True doctoring – and – rescuing – from – poisoning – inebriation episode
as some sort of a healing / medical victory exploit in front of the Good and Wonderful (and “Real” …
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of course, daMan would so have us all to believe this about only MDs and so not at all re mere
veterinarians … ) … in front of the Real Doctor’s royally evil schnoz. It is also quite my thinking that …
Jesse never has either.
March and April approached with still such icy fury. Branches broke and whole limbs crashed down upon
parked automobiles during one of that spring’s storms. But not crushing on my Ol’ Black –– and I knew
we, Jesse and me, finally for one more year at the least, were on the backside of cold. Warm was in the
upcoming picture –– if not exactly immediately, then soon and very soon! I had thoughts of 18 – year – old
Zane graduating. These came regularly; and, every time, … I forced them gone. My eldest child, my most
amazing firstborn babe, was leaving high school, and I hadn’t even known him … in it! It was just as clear
to me that Mirzah Truemaier, my most tender, was now more a stranger to me than I had ever envisaged
would happen to us both. “He was the one, Legion, with you the least amount of time. Even though it was
always, always you in their littlest years, this was bound to happen with Mirzah, Woman,” Grace in her
homespun practicality, acknowledged. Then under her so proper breath in the next moment, she quietly
spewed forth, “Fuck ‘im!” And Grace Portia quite certainly had not meant Mirzah, of course.
No news was ever forthcoming from West Virginia about my two sons there; I simply –– as almost always
before –– had had to assume true that old saw, “No news is good news,” which I thoroughly loathe, by the
way. Nor, of course, to me from any one of those ten or 11 other so, so catholically christian Edinsmaiers
either –– such as that mandatorily reporting yet mother – fucking Mi Sprision O’Revinnoco pediatrician –
sis of daMan’s. Nor to me from Mehitable and Sterling and Ardys and Endys. Not one solitary word to me
from any one of these siblings of mine either –– let alone, any knowledge actually about Mirzah or Zane.
For Zane’s celebratory event then, I imagined that the 77 – year – old Gran’ Matron – of – Only – Men
herself would be, again, stylishly chauffeured out to Information – Withholding Herry’s by Sterling in my
brother’s crimson ‘Vette, one of those midlife crises’ have – to – have boy toys, which exactly matched in
its color Zane’s and the Grubtrop senior class’s graduation robes. This little ‘coordinating’ fact, of course,
I would not come to know till years after Zane’s commencement. Maybe all of that clandestine travel and
behind – the – True – Mama’s – back scenario for Z’s big deal did not take place, but Mehitable’s betrayals
of my trust were now so entrenched in me that I could not have begun to believe any of her whiny denials
of its not happening anyhow.
While Jesse had reconnected with Nathan Portia, his finest friend from Kate Mitchell School’s elementary
days during Jesse’s first week back from West Virginia, that middle son of Grace’s and Lionel’s kept even
crazier work hours as a McDonald’s manager than did most teenagers who also worked so the two of them,
Jesse and Nathan, hung out together less and less. In early March, Jesse came to me with a sweet request ––
and by the end of its very first week, had himself after school and on weekends, too, a merry little job at the
newly opening Red Lobster Restaurant franchise! Washing dishes. “No shame in that at all, Jesse!” I told
him inside Ol’ Black as I dropped him off for his first day at work. “It is a most honorable thing ––
to wash dishes. Ask just, O, … any mother.” I think he got it. At his age of 16, Jesse’s employer stated that
Iowa law prevented restaurant management from allowing him to serve patrons alcohol; therefore, Jesse
could not be a waiter and, as such, would be unable to bring in the tip money which he would rather have
liked more than bussing tables or to spend a lot of his work time in the changing social view of folks out
front. Still Jesse stuck it out. And began saving –– almost all of what his paycheck did bring in to him.
By early May of 1995, Mehitable began again in earnest her telephoning attempts, “Zane is graduating,
isn’t he?!” As if my Boys’ maternal grandmother did not know! As if … Me hit able … weren’t instead
truly recounting and soloing again her 17 October 1992 stanza of, “Nah, nah, nah, naaaah … nah!” with
each call into Havencourt Drive. The refrain after which I had had to concertedly cease, of my own and
with Therapist Log’s accordance, all communication with her after their return from her and Sterling’s
secret Grubtrop rendezvous at King Herod’s and his Nottingham Sheriff’s. I simply replaced the receiver
on its hook time after time after time. And Zane did graduate. We –– Jesse and I –– were, of course, not
invited. And, of course as well, … not there.
Jesse had another thought which amounted to a request as well: He wanted to invite a fellow bicycling
enthusiast, one from Zane’s and Mirzah’s high school however, to join him the last full week of July
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on the entire course of the Des Moines Register’s Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa, its 23rd yearly
occurrence! I must’ve been nuts; but so huge in Iowa, and all over the Midwest really, is the event of
RAGBRAI that a mere mama would have to come up with a lengthy and liturgical laundry list of really
compelling reasons why mighty fine cyclists such as Jesse and his amigo should not test themselves.
Sleeplessness and the near – incessant flow of hooch over the course of at least 168 hours’ worth were,
well, … two! Were, at the least, two such reasons of which I could, indeed, come up!
But Jesse, as a matter of fact for his lifetime I am thinking, remembered the relatively recent night of the
17th and 18th of December just passed –– and had even experienced, since, the same, very real prospect for
doom and death in other of his intoxicated high school friends. Alcohol would not be the problem; Herry
Edinsmaier … would be. Web Will, our neighbor who had seen to Zephyr’s proper and permanent
placement, was the University biking club’s trainer anyhow. Web so kindly volunteered to accommodate
any needs during the RAGBRAI week which Jesse and Mateo may encounter which they could not
themselves handle. Still it would be a long shot as far as Pissed – Off Herry was concerned –– but only
because I had approved of the adventure first. Not … because of Herry’s harboring any perceived danger
or physical impossibility for the two boys.
After all, I Legion True, am the evil – intentioned parent. Almost (but noooot quite all! … of course, Jury!)
every American court’s judge had said so –– and written so –– and ruled so –– through years’ and years’
worth of his so – sexist , precedent – setting decisions: about this lone woman’s hysterically males’ –
threatening mental state, thus therefore “by extension” then too, her incapacitating custodial capabilities for
my own sons, … these 23! adjudicating men not bothering to remember! to mention amongst them all! one
blasting, lambasting word, let alone, any ruling ever at all with regard to the very same thingy on me relative
to … other people’s children!
But that? That King Herod had, when it so conveniently suited him, solitarily decided for himself, and his
patriarchally dictatorial witch – hunt went on unabated without ever having to be monitored or curtailed
one whit: that was a fucking given! DaJudge Butcher’s Beknighted Doctor, Herod Edinsmaier, took
every opportunity to tell me so himself as often as he cared to communicate with me and including as
recently as that epistolizing harangue of his just the previous July 1994 –– literally only moments before!
his then subsequently mailed, befuddling, very next letter arrived … “asking” me if I wanted to take on …
Jesse! Teenaged! Jesse –– just freshly released from Blue Ridge Hazelnut Psych! Hospital!
First, Legion’s not good enough to just be even Dr. Chesler’s – characterized, “good – enough” mother.
And not just for undertaking her Truemaier Boys’ primary custodial care but the Pussy isn’t good enough
even to have one iota of contact! –– ever –– with any one of her three male children. Not just in – person
visitation can she not have, the Boys cannot have any verbal contact with her at all. Of not one birthday card
ever arriving from her can Zane, Jesse or Mirzah Truemaier see or know! Not ever! Decider Herry …
decides. He tells himself.
After all, from that Final Act did not we all, Jury, hear back from Those Concurring Most High Men that
the Crazed Twat, DEhuman Legion True, the Bitch Who Should Be Gutted, also required for said whore
cleansing – gutting, to complete a planned program of “mental therapy” –– both designed by! and signed
off on by! all of daJudges’ – appointed Knight himself, … King Herod?!
Then –– suddenly –– suddenly –– suddenly –– just whenever – the – fuck Crazy – Making Herry “feels”
like it, … I am! I AM … GOOD ENOUGH! Bada bing, bada bang, bada boom. I am!
“What is that, Jury?”
O, JYea, allweall know what this patriarchal whimsy – “deciding” is: just a whole ‘nother mother –
fucking. Of Addict Herod Edinsmaier’s cows’, dogs’, pigs’, chickens’ and OB / GYN cunt models’ –
caliber. Ancient, literally ages – old … this androcentric woman – loathing is, Jury.
So you can imagine my further befuddlement when, upon Herry’s being asked about Jesse’s RAGBRAI
proposal, Daddee Herry had one of his own on the tip of his tongue with which to fire right back at me.
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But by way of through Jesse, of course, though. Regal Herod Edinsmaier did not deign to talk to me on the
telephone; that would have been so imperially wrong of the Entry – Level Monarch: to have lowered himself
by speaking directly to The Pain in his wee royal ass. Actually, the calculated make – the – pussy – invisible,
shunning – of – the – cunt technique which Herry had so well – polished at our family’s kitchen table on
Othello Drive and throughout all of the years of mawwiage before that specific starter – castle in Ames,
Commander Edinsmaier routinely continued to practice in front of, and therefore, to instruct the Truemaier
Boys in its mastery from the first moment he chose to strut out of his bachelor pad’s brown front door.
“Always the teacher, huh, Herry?!” I am thinking. “Just like you always used to say about yourself?!”
How presumptuous. My teenagers are so thoroughly schooled on just exactly how to eschew anything
resembling respect and honor of us DEhumans of any age or station.
Decider Herod brushed aside Jesse’s plan with a whimsy, “Ah, O? O yeah, go for it, Jesse. Hey, ah, glad
ya’ called. Mirzah wants to come out ‘nd live there, too. How soon d’ya’ think that can get arranged?”
“Ya’ mean for school, too? No, you just mean for the summer, right, Herry?” Jesse conformed, too, just
like both of his brothers always, always obeyed as well. Complied with the King’s dictum and only
addressed his biological male parent –– ever –– by the man’s first name and never by any parenting – like
title. Never. Since infancy with any one of the three Boys’ first vocalizing “dah – dah”s, the Great and
Wonderful Doctor Herod Edinsmaier had –– instantly –– dissed any sort of that parental commission’s
identification. It was crystal clear now as to why the Slacker had done so! Someone responding to the call
of another claiming him to be ‘Daddy’, to be ‘Father’, to be his ‘Dad’? Even ‘Pa’ or ‘Pop’? Well, that
respondent would …, well, he would have … to parent … then, wouldn’t he?! Work! The man could not
get away with just acting like a 17 – year – old, older brother all of the time, let alone, as a frolicking, jolly
Joy Toy Boy! And now that not only Zane was even older than Herry’s desired age of arrested development
but also the other two Boys were almost there to Herry’s exact, day – to – day behavioral status as well …
Mirzah and Jesse each nearly 17 years old themselves … why, the palsey – walsey, laissez – faire nature of
Lazy Adolescent Herry and the Boys’ interrelating most definitely needed to be maintained.
I could not actually hear the words of Herod Edinsmaier in the telephone receiver, of course; but I knew!
Parenting for him? It so sucked! The Slacker had had all of ‘it’ that he could stand. Plus he sooooo had not
at all learned –– apparently –– about the dark and stormy night of maternal doctoring borne on the shoulders
of Rufus’ and Jesse’s other parents of just a few months earlier. The money Herry stood to lose from me by
Mirzah’s leaving him, too? Not nearly as much, if any, as compared to that former amount once upon a long
time ago after Act One concluded! After all, Zane was 18 already! Jesse had been talking to Mirzah about
how great things in Ames still were; it had not taken Mirzah long at all to want to change his own address
away from Grubtrop’s and back to his previous Havencourt one with Jesse and his mother.
What I feared throughout all of this ecstasy, and with great reason to be alarmed, is Thuggish Herry’s bait –
‘nd – switch, give, give … – and – then – yank – ‘em – like – hell control … juuuust when The Bitch is
getting used to things lovely! Like having at least two of her Boys back living with her! History is such
a fine educator that way –– extremely more excellent and a far more superior one than Always – a –
Teacher Edinsmaier ever was alongside Cleveland’s Edwina inside their actual middle – school classrooms
there. History had proven so, so correct my ability to predict Gutting Herry’s future behavior –– and, most
especially true, when anything went a bit awry. Anything at all. And it was soooo about to! Even if
Dr. Herod Edinsmaier desired to stop dawdling around at the work of daddee – ing –– as some time ago
Attorney Jazzy Jinx had quite wisely counseled me about him … and as the Good and Wonderful Doctor’s
former Supervisor Shark and the White Firm’s lawyers for the Downshim Laboratories had denounced and
condemned this derelict man due to Slacker Herry’s utter absence of … any genre of recognizable, not to
mention accountable, sustainable and, O say, sustained! work ethic.
My fear is infinitesimal compared to that which MaryBeth Longdottir, Jesse’s and my neighbor directly
across our street, underwent and herself lives through there to this very day. It was a weekday, I don’t
remember which one, but it must have been later on into the afternoon because other folks were home from
work, too. And heard her. Just a few days before Mirzah’s arrival back here, the most bloodcurdling scream
pierced the dusky air at twilight and ripped all the way up and down Havencourt Drive. MaryBeth, now
prostrate, writhing and shrieking on the little strip of grass outside her front door, had been struggling through
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and was suffering right in the midst of quite the same throes as my fate –– that is, that of the loss of the
custody of her four boys over to a pillared, millionaire businessman (and that daddee’s next cunt, too, of
course) three Iowa counties’ drive away during just about the very same divorcing time frame as my own.
Jesse and I prepared several dishes, one a platter full, foil – covered, of piping hot corn – on – the – cob,
one certain to, at the least only, physically sustain MaryBeth’s three other preteen and teenaged boys since
they were bound to be enroute on their way over to Ames to try to bolster and hold up their mama.
MaryBeth’s eldest, Zane’s exact age and from way back during my Boys’ Kate Mitchell Elementary
classrooms together, had just been killed in a car crash in Paris, France, while holidaying there ––
on his graduation present … that trip to Europe.
*
*
*
*
Mirzah did come. I don’t recall how –– not by bus and not by airplane, I am thinking, so it may have been
by way of one of Herry’s many, many mooching roadtrips out from West Virginia to sponge off of his
Midwest relatives, also an imposing behavior of his which old acquaintances and central Iowans who knew
him (‘member Jury, Abby and Devin and their two little girls?) had experienced firsthand from Herod
Edinsmaier multiple times in the past. Freeloader Herry had been rather infamous for some time in regard
to … his blatantly massive buggery of aprovechar – taking.
It seems to me that the only way a person, to himself or to herself, could get away with this conduct over and
over and for such a long, long time would have to be by simple self – justification; ya’ know –– denial.
Denial to yourself of who you truly are.
But not in the case of the superior Dr. Herod Edinsmaier.
Even though the justification to himself –– of why so much taking is mightily A – okay –– is the same as
anyone else’s who has countenanced themselves in this narcissistic fashion year after adult year, that is by the
self – centered egoism of, “My presence in your space is thanks enough from me! If I deign to grace you with
My Self, then that is my gratefulness to you aplenty, Cunt!” Then Aprovechar – Herry would simply proceed
to take: food, lodging, another’s labors and preparations, fawning over, booze, O JYeah … lots and lots of
others’ hooch back in the day when I’m – Entitled – to – Drive – Drunk Herod Edinsmaier still drank –– and,
most especially, Vulvae – Sniffing Herry took for himself from any and all vulvae – harboring hostesses what
he considers his kingly right of enslaving – DEhuman ownership, “DO for me, Pussy. I AM The Exalted One.
Now you DO for ME. Got that, Twat?”
So … Herry knew! Corrupt Herry always knew that he was taking; it was never a matter of his having to
deny to himself his greed, his arrogance and that sicko sense of daMan’s total entitlement. Dr. Herod
Edinsmaier merely and quite consciously made it His Choice to take –– without reciprocal remuneration,
without so much as the work of any thinking even given over to any reciprocity forthcoming from him ––
just any ol’ friggin’ time that it pleased him to do so.
No matter how wonderful for children Ames is –– including and, most especially, for teenagers –– and no
matter how much Mirzah and Jesse wanted to be together again, Mirzah’s coming to live with me, Legion
True, would not have happened anywhere unless Herry hadn’t, first, found in its occurrence something in it
for himself. After all, this, remember, is the same guy who along with Shyster Shindy Scheisser’s ‘legal aid’
less than just three to four years earlier, had taken it upon themselves to try to vengefully fling and flail ––
as well as to quite handsomely profit monetarily from flapping –– Herry’s side of the story out there to
Hollywood in the form of that made – to – TV film which Violent, Violating, Passive Aggressor Herry had
wanted to sell. Jesse had actually seen, as you know Jury, the tentative contract with the television company
and its producers, “ … for $100,000 plus 5% I saw, Ma,” Jesse had related to me. “What’s the ‘5 percent’
part mean, Mom?”
Zane had seen it, too, the movie’s draft contract, “ … where you’re gonna be made out to be … ah, um,
ya’ know, to look like ‘the murderer’ in it, Ma. In the movie it’s gonna be you, Mama, who’ll be seen as
… as … the bad guy, ya’ know.”
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“But you stopped it, didn’t ya’, Mama? It didn’t happen cuz of you, right? You wouldn’t sign with the
film guys. You wouldn’t even speak to ‘em, would ya’, Ma?” Jesse had been fishing from me –– as my
knuckles gripped the wee white rental’s steering wheel back inside that 1993 April afternoon of the
clandestine Montclank park to where Jesse and I had driven off –– to be safe while we talked. To be away
from any central West Virginia public who might get a notion that this concrete truck – driving Sam –
‘man’ … with Jesse … just didn’t quite act ‘right’ after all –– like a manly man, like a true fatherly dude.
That he was, instead, a she trying to disguise herself into looking like the teenaged kiddo’s daddy!
I hearkened back to the lesson, the one made more emphatic and memorable for me by his air – thumping
gesturing during it, the lesson from my attorney of the Opera’s Act One, Mr. Jazzy Jinx, who had felt
compelled to leave it with me: In his experience by then of 20 years’ practicing general law including
family matters, he had never –– not one time –– seen a father press for custody of children who had
actually truly wanted … to parent them. Daddee wanted legal custody for three reasons only, none of
which reasons had been for exactly that –– that long, long effort of disciplining and sustained … woooork!
Mostly daddee wanted (the nightmarish battling fights over) custody because of the vengeance of it all that
his then having all control over her children afforded to him against the bitch. Secondly, Mr. Jinx divulged,
had been because of the money –– of course, the child support bucks. That third reason, though, was a bit
more elusive. Daddee wanted the children in order to somehow flee the work of it all: to get someone else
in there, such as a barely fuckable and cuntly Ms. Fannie Issicran McLive, to do the routine, continual daily
work of engagedly true parenting which that mean ol’ battleaxe – ex of his, the kiddos’ actual mama, had
seemed to have to keep after him, their father, to do when they were married –– and that he soooo was not
about to even start thinking on doing … after … the two of them had gotten divorced!
“Fathers,” Mr. Jinx was certain in his tone, “just want to look good in front of the kids and the folks at work
and around town. Dad also wants to look good to the other people in his family who think that he should
‘want’ his kids. But but but,” Mr. Jinx carefully pounded an invisible wall with his right palm and
fingers fully extended with each ‘but’, “believe me, I’ve seen it a long, long time –– and it never changes.
He wants her to suffer –– sure; that is why he initially goes after custody, but he also doesn’t want the
work of it –– ever! So that’s why, if the judge ends up giving him custody, why, that’s why he marries!
Right away! Or at least he gets himself coupled with somebody else, a surrogate mommy, a proxy …
And right away. Trust me!”
In this specific divorcing father’s case then, the summer of 1995, and Jesse’s and Mirzah’s both coming
back to me in Ames provided for Herry Edinsmaier –– finally in that former and flamboyant Family –
Deconstruction Project of Herry’s more – or – less hatched to fruition back here in his house – of – cards’
bachelor pad on Ames’ Othello Drive –– his very own … Escape From Accountability! Cuz quite apparent
by now, it was evidentiarily and testimonially a total certainty that the particular next ‘official’ Mrs. Herod
Edinsmaier, Ninny Fannie Issicran McLive –– as the King – Daddee’s nanny –– was not at all turning out to
be what she had initially cracked herself all up to be at succeeding in … the actual – work – of – parenting –
His Majesty’s – descendents’ department!
There had been then, right off, with Ninnie Nannie Fannie that grand and old, old patriarchal mawwiage
thingy of “one flesh” wherein she, the woman of said mawwiage, stands as not a thing more really than
a collection of additional organs of his, of the husband’s! Of daMan’s! And since Ms Fannie Issicran
McLive’s functioning in such a union within the masquerade of a separate human – like structure for the
purposes of procreation was soooo not needed, then her operating as a home – and – hearth keeper along
with her handling of other incidentals such as the keeping aaaaaway of the Ex Pussy –– way away from
King Herod as well as altogether away from his West Virginian Territory –– why, His Added Organs had
performed at all of these matters quite dismally, quite diss – functionally! Utterly abysmally! Subsequently,
King Herod, as such the prescribed owner of the “one flesh” and, thus, of her … had had for himself a most
disturbed pattern to trying to live his androcentric adult life … as He, The Human Being, wished!
Thus: “ … the something in it for himself” finally became most clear: The Last Fleshy, Organismic Mother –
Fuck, Legion, can sooo be kept waaaay away along with that added, major bonus of the Slacker’s ‘sorta’
workload reality even more than halved! if … if …. if Mirzah and Jesse are simply sent away back –– to her!
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Mirzah smiled a lot and read as much, too, up in his very own, old room. About two weeks into his late May
arrival, Mirzah came to me with what had been Jesse’s recent request as well: Mirzah, not then yet until late
September to turn 16, wanted a job for something else to do and to earn money as well, of course. And
before we both knew it, that very next week my boss came to me asking if I knew of any high schoolers who
might want to do odd jobs for the Economics Department, a sort of Kid Friday – type of deal. Carrying
parcels, delivering items across campus, anything from one envelope to several packages’ worth, filing,
copying, bulk mailings, that sort of thing; she or he didn’t even need to be old enough to drive. “Kinda late
to be lookin, I know,” she had apologized, “Most everyone’s got a job for the summer by now. But if you
hear of someone, let me know, would ya’ please?”
Equipped with a map plus legend of the Campus, Mirzah set out upon his first delivery assignment ––
a way, too, to smell the freshness of the day besides learning the setup of much of the physicality of Iowa
State University, one of the most gorgeous university campuses nationwide. Repeatedly a prize – charmer
with its vast lawn expanses, flowerbed gardens and stately Ivory Tower architecture –– actually, winning in
academies’ landscaping contests for that very beautification category from time to time. When Mirzah
came to my workstation to announce his success, I recalled being a high school teen in Ames –– as well as
accomplishing all three years of my junior high time here before that one sophomore year. Seventh, eighth
and ninth grades of my public education had all been entirely spent just one block south of this specific
University campus! It was wild to be an adolescent with all of these college – like matters around one all
of the time; we all thought that we were such hot shit –– to exist so closely to so much grownup stuff going
on. I had loved school every day because of that part of it particularly. Slut – Slamming and – Shaming
Mehitable, you can imagine Jury, so loathed that I –– physically –– dwelled in such proximity to it all!
And most regularly humiliated and harangued on me, then in my early teenage years … the same age as
Mirzah now was, about this very fact, too.
A first paycheck is something else for an adolescent –– especially when it comes to her or him from folks
not their mom or dad or aunt or uncle or from any family member nor for labors done for a relative’s
company, business or agenda. A rite of passage it certainly is, yes; but I find it to be much more than that:
it is a statement of approval. Of validation. “You work,” it says. Of course, it means, “Sure, you worked;
therefore, you get paid.” But that paycheck represents more than that: more like, “You work out.
We think you work out for this department, this company, this job. You work out in the exact endeavor
and in the precise manner that we’d hoped that you would! This is why we hired you so … so here’s a
fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work,” these earnings state. AmTaham would agree with me; rather,
from him I probably learned to believe this axiom, I am thinking! And so Mirzah succeeded day after day –
– enough so as to receive that very first paycheck –– ever! And then subsequently, through multiple two –
week pay periods thereafter –– to secure for himself this summer of 1995, … several more of the same!
A formal business curriculum and a financier’s practice, principles and the discipline of investing possibly
existed for Mirzah in his future. Now? Now I just loved to see him smile and to hear his voice; every day
at his job Mirzah came to my job! Breathing down and exhaling out finally began occurring deep within my
chest –– in the whole of my carcass truly –– in such a “formerly normal” fashion that I barely recognized
just how relaxed I was becoming!
Along with his working and reading and lounging around our itty bitty condo complex swimming pool ––
again –– with new friends from the hood and those old ones from his previous Kate Mitchell Elementary
School days, Mirzah three times weekly took off on CyRide, Ames’ public transportation system –– also an
award – winning busing service! or by way of my chauffeuring him there –– for Tae Kwon Do and found
himself the youngest participant in the University – sponsored martial arts class for around its 30 th year
instructed by Master Pak, a world – renowned guru of the discipline. I was again astonished both at
Mirzah’s initiative and at the opportunity afforded him, a mere 15 – year – old, by such programs of this
University’s community. I so enjoyed watching this instruction and even received advances from Master
Pak as to my joining Mirzah in class. I did not. I did not, and still do not, feel worthy enough. I do not
believe Mirzah missed one session of workouts and practice–– ever; he embraced this cultivation wholly.
And before I knew it Mirzah contested for –– his yellow belt!
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Then one day in early July in to that raven – colored mailbox of ours on Havencourt Drive, it arrived, too:
the letter containing a waiver of accountability signed by Mateo’s mother, yet another health care provider /
mama. She also stated that accompanying Mateo at the Des Moines International Airport would also be all
of a week’s worth of biking gear and the date and time of when Jesse and I could go there to pick him up!
As our neighborhood’s resident expert on bicycling, Mr. Web Will, had assented to watch over the two of
them on their lovely seven – day RAGBRAI adventure together, I was thrilled for Jesse’s quest, too!
Tortured a lot, I must say actually … because of Daddee Edinsmaier and what he would try to do to me …
if something along the way of this upcoming week did not quite go … the Wonderful Doctor’s Way ––
but so, so heartened and enthused for Jesse.
So … loaded down in the wagon portion of Ol’ Black, off we three sped then, probably at the earliest hour
ever for Jesse and me on a Sunday morning, –– in order to arrive two hours’ driving time away on federal
Highway #30 at Onawa, the westernmost point on RAGBRAI’s itinerary across Iowa, by … its 6 a.m.
sendoff time. Mirzah, new as he was to this weekday, working – stiff undertaking, stayed in bed! I briefly
spoke with Web, then patted Mateo’s shoulder and kissed and hugged Jesse. With the ceremonial back –
tire dip into the Missouri River waters then, all of the cyclists –– more than 8,000 of them in total –– were,
indeed, off! Including its Saggy Thursday, like horseflies on a stable’s sticky paper, when riders dropped
out in droves because of the worst 79 – mile stretch of hills, 95 – degree heat and 35 mile – per – hour
headwinds into Sigourney from Tama – Toledo, neither Jesse nor Mateo broke during any of that summer’s
annual RAGBRAI –– its 23rd … beginning, as it had, on the 23rd of July! Without so much as a broken
limb or even broken skin such as from a fall off the saddle had they; only one, lone flat tire sustained
between the two of them –– along all 493 miles of that particular RAGBRAI’S entire route! Through
eastern Iowa’s refreshing Coralville then and finally finishing in Muscatine, one of Iowa’s oldest riverbank
towns, Ol’ Black and I were there, 3½ hours’ driving time east of Ames, having arrived around
2 p.m. on Saturday, the 29th, awaiting the dynamic duo’s ending and their traditional, ritual dip of the bikes’
front tires into the trickling puddle that is the Mississippi River! With exhalation heaves, grins, high – fives
and backslaps all around! What a deal for Jesse and his friend! Even today I am stunned by their fantastic
feat.
Dog days exist as the essence of Augusts in Iowa almost always, and 1995’s was assuredly the rule and no
exception. Thank goodness for the air conditioning at Mirzah’s and my jobs at the Econ Department
because we certainly so did not have it running at home on Havencourt! Jesse struggled in front of his
steamy dishwasher at the Red Lobster only to enter nearly the same thing, the horrendous humidity of
Storm County, any time that his specific shift ended its day’s or evening’s stretch and he exited the
restaurant’s building! Three weeks into this month of August in Ames school begins, so a parent has about
that much time left to prepare all such enrollment matters. Again, I telephoned the Front Office up at Ames
High to make sure we were all ready for Mirzah’s entry into his sophomore year there! He was not!
Along around 13 years old and, almost always by age 14, a person residing in almost all of the United States
is required by secondary school policy and such administrations to have received a second measles, mumps,
rubella immunization, the last needed MMR for one’s supposed lifetime protection against these three
viruses. Mirzah’s daddee, the Good and Wonderful Doctor, had been derelict in this medical duty of his
and had failed in this particular parental matter regarding Mirzah’s health. And, of course as well, so had for
the three Truemaier Boys altogether King Herod’s ‘Step’ping Nowhere Adequately – Ninny Nanny!
Perhaps West Virginia is one of the Union’s few states without strict policy; Iowa is not. One way or the
other, it does not matter to me about West Virginian law. As a mama and as a microbiologist, this
dereliction is unconscionable.
Furthermore, as a person whose own mother had progressed through a pregnancy wherein she had
simultaneously contracted and suffered through the actual disease of the German measles –– rubella ––
and then given birth to a bambina entirely absent the sense of hearing in her left ear because of the virally
induced agenesis of its eighth cranial nerve, a person whom Mehitable named Legion, I was livid upon
‘hearing’ (in my one good, right ear!) that my Boy, Mirzah, was himself because of Doctor Daddee Herry,
because of his negligence and his laziness and his failings and … because of his utter Fear of Real Work,
… that Mirzah was, indeed as of yet, unprotected.
501
I could not help Eldest Son Zane prepare as he entered his first year of college at the University of Missouri
in Columbia. In fact, he was already there; but, of course, I had no address, no telephone number, only a
guess as to his chosen curriculum or major, no knowledge at all as to any dormitory or whether or not Zane
was, initially at least, to stay with friends of Herry’s. Herry, always the most accomplished sycophant
wherever it financially benefited him, was not at all above trading my Children’s college costs for lots and
lots of appropriate sniveling and demonstrative fawning whenever that would work to save him money or
effort. And there in Columbia existed that one pontificating bloviator on whom Daddee Herry regularly
practiced his particular art of leech – like parasitism, that witness from the Opera’s Act One, the arrogantly
asinine pomposity who had flopped himself, soooo importantly like, all over the courtroom’s testifying stand
–– wrapping his warped self around it throughout his “evidentiary testimony” –– as if his presence, and his
alone, was all that mattered to the judge’s determinations, was all that mattered in meting out Constitutional
“justice” –– in this divorce’s decree.
So it was entirely possible that Zane, for that matter, was all set to reside with Dr. Freddie Goldstein, yet
another pathologic pathologist and the one under whom Slacker Herry had finally finished this specialty’s
residency. About Dr. Snobbie Goldstein’s own family which included his wife, Ella, and their three children?
Those four persons were of no consequence to User Herry; daMan needn’t concern himself with extra
bootlicking nor any brown – nosing on these folks’ accounts. Aprovechar – Taker Edinsmaier certainly did
not need to even ask them for their opinions on any matter related to his future filching functions. Such as
Zane’s possibly living with all of them … indefinitely.
*
*
*
*
I could do something, however, about the remainder of Youngest Son Mirzah’s high school experience.
Immediately I made an appointment for the 22nd of August, with Mirzah’s former pediatrician’s office to have
done for him that very vaccination pronto: the MMR. School –– Mirzah’s sophomore year at Ames High ––
could commence then … unobstructed. As the two of us inside the beater – wagon turned the Teacup’s corner
onto Havencourt Drive along around 4 that Tuesday afternoon and after just concluding less than an hour
earlier this so simple chore over to the Clinic, Mirzah and I smiled about the ease of this particular visit to the
doctor –– in contrast to those of tiny children when they have to periodically go in for their shots. Almost
simultaneously, we together spotted in the distance sitting alongside the curb of 6143,
our condominium, something looming there about which I had such the ominous and threatening flashback: a
Ryder rental truck.
Ol’ Black crept closer and closer to our driveway, and the smile vanished from my mouth. I cast a jerked
and frightened gawk at Mirzah who exclaimed as he leaned forward toward the dashboard, “It’s Herry!”
“Om’god! A truck just like when he first took you all away, Mirzah!” Immediately thrown right back into
hypervigilance mode, I remembered out loud that horrible Saturday morning of the 13 th day of October
almost five years previously! “What’s he doing here?! What’s he doing here with a truck, for chris’sake!?”
“I called him.”
“You called him?!”
“Wull, yeah. But. Um.”
“You called him an’, and … an’ right away out he comes?! But why?!” I was stunned. “What’s he gonna
do?! He’s got a truck, for chris’sake! What does that mean, Mirzah?!”
“Well, ah, I … I, um, I think it means I’m going back to West Virginia, Mom.”
I was sick! Literally … sick. Nauseated and throat – choked, my breathing ceased again! Sure enough.
“In and out in about an hour,” just like that television commercial beckons a viewer to go get himself fixed
up with a pair of new eyeglasses of that hawking store’s particular brands.
502
“In and out in about an hour,” my whole life was stolen from me … yet once AGAIN! By now –– Daddee
– Herry’s so infamous bait – and – switch gutting of the Bitch’s whole essence. And of at least two of
those three Truemaier Boys’ beings, of course, as well. Yet once AGAIN!
As much as my remembering that so twisted whirlwind of those 60 – some minutes’ worth of both of these
Truemaier Boys’ last moments beside me there on Havencourt Drive, I recall Herod Edinsmaier’s …
signature snide smirkface. The Good and Wonderful Doctor – Daddee was on … The Take again! From
specifically me –– on the prowl and on His Take … AGAIN! Taking back –– from me, the Kiddos’ mama
–– both Mirzah and Jesse! “SONS, YOU HAVE NO MOTHER! MOTHER, YOU HAVE NO SONS!
I say so! Therefore, Pussy, it is so!”
As with very many a hating and violent man, I am thinking now as I type, Jury, that if joy ever comes to this
guy from anywhere or from anything, –– ever, truly –– then its emergence for him must almost always be tied
to: how great is the pain and the grief and the sorrow –– how great is the vengeance –– that Dr. Herod
Edinsmaier can manage to reign in and to rain down upon Legion True. What an insecure man! Dry – Drunk
and Addict Herry’s happiness depends, daily, upon taking –––– upon his taking away … mine.
Pretty much the exact same assessment of and sentiment expressed about Herry –– precisely as a father ––
by Iowa Court of Appeals Appellate Judge Pansy Shawshank –––– within her six – page majority decision!
… … ah, er, that is, inside the one which, of course, became … because of sexism and chicanery by that
court’s Chiefy Donnellson plus a couple other of his specific judiciary’s hench –– ah, er, um, … bench – men
… the woman’s dissent, instead! She, naturally its one and only token DEhuman jurist, so saw Hardhearted
Herry for who he was, too –– and she did so in far less time and scope than most other folks who come into
Dr. Edinsmaier’s sphere have had at their disposals in order “to measure” him. Him … daMan. A destroyer
doctor. “First, do no harm?” As so decrees the very first dictum to which all health care providers pledge
themselves? This one also an alleged daddee, granted the M.D. degree in March of 1980, when Mirzah
Truemaier was but a wee six months of age and Brother Jesse a 19 – month – old, is not an honorable and
healing lifter – up of humankind but, instead, an insecure, ruthless –– and measurable –– rot who denies,
ruptures and annihilates.
I had already forgotten about the disagreement Mirzah and I had had sometime during the previous week.
And, now, I cannot even remember the cause at that time of my vexation with my so soon – to – be
sophomore Son nor the scrape in which the two of us must have earlier engaged. I am said to have been so
ireful at whatever it was that Mirzah did or said or wanted or decided on his own that I locked him out of the
condominium declaring as I did so the directive, “My house. My rules.” I don’t believe the squabble could
have been focused on something Mirzah said and certainly nothing that he did to people whom he considers
his friends and acquaintances. He is just too sweet – natured a human being, then and now, to have
purposefully and calculatingly with nefarious motive, hurt any one of his contemporaries intentionally.
Except for one matter –––– pornography. What hath Herry Edinsmaier wrought?
With his gonzo mind and his snide mouth and Corrupt Herry’s dastardly deeds against women, I suddenly
remembered about, as Ol’ Black inched into the condo’s driveway, those two DEhumans whom Dr. Herod
Edinsmaier had not even cared enough about to have bothered himself to get out of bed in time to show up
for the women’s breast biopsies as their frozen – section pathologist whom he had been hired by Kansas
City’s Downshim Laboratories to be! With Herry’s bestial (literally, –– Jury, remember the cows – / dogs
– / pigs – / chickens – / and cunt models – fucking) view of womankind –– that same contaminating
contagion which he had inherited from Detanimod’s Grand – Dominating Poker – Patriarch Juggern Aut
Misein Edinsmaier and the one which both That Old Mother – Fucker and the sooooo, so christianizingly
DEhuman – fucking Martin Luther King, Jr. held about aaaall of us females, –– why, Daddee Herry had
easily, readily –– and happily –– passed woman – loathing and his concerted DEhumanization of well
over half of the World’s populations anywhere on … to all of the sons. And, most especially, Model Parent
Edinsmaier, relying upon for his “excuse” to do so the Truemaier Boys’ and his most entitled of “cultural”
speech freedoms, could voluminously secure as he so desired to procure for his own addicted neediness
503
then, more and more and more pornography, “Stupid – Ass Heifer, now doncha’ be a – messin’ with my
and m’boys’ First Amendment Right, You Whore!”
Exactly the very escape from accountability –– this paternal – filial pornography – ‘sharing’ camaraderie is
–– as the alcoholic father who purposefully places himself in situations in order to be able to drink with his
kiddo. And jokingly but yet loudly terms it to them and to all the World as … “bonding” –– instead of as
the addiction it actually is! “How can ya’ come between a man and his dad when they’re just out enjoyin’ a
coupla’ brews together at the ballpark, Bitch?” Pops gets what he wants, doesn’t he, Jury? More and more
and more booze. And the adult child? Why, the kid also gets what Bucko – Pappy ––
and Attorney Jazzy Jinx some time back had counseled that Slacker – Slick Daddee –– always wants:
Father as the picture – perfect “parent who just likes to have some fun, ya’ know. To show ‘his good,
good buddy’ a mighty fine time, that’s all!” But it –– the sham –– is soooo not all –– at all, is it, Jury?
The one child likely most influenced by the twisted yet so commonly “accepted” recesses of Dr. Herod
Edinsmaier’s deviance was the one child actually with his mama the least amount of time –– Mirzah.
If the quarrel had been about print pornography or videotape pornography run and viewed upon my
condominium’s VCR machine or if I had come across other formats of woman –– loathing, then I certainly
can see where I would have acted on the “my house / my rules” declaration. I had explained –– repeatedly
and try to do so to this day –– how the production and consumption of pornography by any person is the
purposeful and intentional harm and destruction and loathing of female human beings ––
53 percent of and, therefore, the majority of the entire Earth. A DEhumanization with proportions not
equaled by any other matter in the whole wide World; but I was with Mirzah, and, therefore, to date his
maternally parental influencer, … the least amount within his lifetime.
And Herry? Herry, as husband and as ex – spouse, has plied his addiction and purposefully involved his
minor children with it in quite the silenced and secretive way that that alcoholic daddee carries on with his
hooch, “The more my sons drink with me, the more I can, too!” Whether that juicing jag takes place at
home or in bars, in cars or during a day at the beach. Anywhere. “The more my kids use porn and think it
fun, humorous and entertainment, then the more of it my brain gets to have?! Well, that’s just A – okay,
too! After all, we’re bonding! Me an’ m’boys! Father and son –– we’re buds! Jus’ engagin’ in a …
‘bonding’ … activity together, for chris’sake, Twat!”
When those 12 issues of Playboy had, regular as the moon’s cycles, crept into his Othello Drive bachelor –
pad starter castle under the subscription Daddee – Herry had corrected for nine – year – old Zane
Truemaier’s ordering of it and all four of its household’s males had retired together to King Herod’s
den with any one of the particular, newly arrived issues of it … “to check on the Boys’ development,”
Mirzah and Mirzah’s brain had been only six years old. When the separation and divorce was pending
and Addicted Herry, right straightaway, ‘chose’ Ms. Fannie Issicran McLive with whom to start keeping
company, it was Mirzah, barely seven and eight years of age, whom Herry took with him when he went to
buy for her a gem – studded condom and a “hormones are raging” greeting card. All three Truemaier Boys
were present during a mandatory visitation (Of course! Of course, these sojourning soirées were
androcentrically and sperm – exaltingly … daddee – mandatory!) with Herry when Daddee Dearest,
smirkingly I am sure, told Ms. McLive a three ducks’ anuses’ joke inside a booth at a Fatlantic café ––
that particular tarriance of the Wooing and Courting King Herod’s having been the Boys’ –– any of my
three Truemaier Boys’ –– very first time meeting The Other Snide Person who in such short order was to
become their … so, so unwilling to – step – back – from and to – step – out – of – the – Real – Mama –
position’s step – mother.
And through the years, there had been more. So much, much more. The Boys had been inundated when
they were still in and then, even more frequently, just passed the primary grades and going, going, going,
… then finally altogether … gone from me. Gone –– Zane, Jesse and Mirzah –– from me, their mama.
All crimes, of course. Every instance a crime. All of it criminal and perpetrated by one abusing, violent
and violating man, their own biological father, that Great and Wonderful Healer, Dr. Herod Edinsmaier.
504
With Mirzah always then the youngest –– both in terms of the Daddee Herry – “approved” and – facilitated
exposure to and use of pornography and of a child’s perception with regard to the whole and utterly
complete disappearance so fashioned and brought about by that same father of the kiddo’s own mother ––
there came into existence then the altogether determined wiping – out, the absolute erasure and deletion of
a so inconveniently protecting mama who would have tried, had she physically been around,
to put a stop to Daddee – Herry’s (and, generationally, to Juggern Aut Misein Edinsmaier’s) insidious
inculcation and passing on of woman – hating to her children, all of them happening to be, of course, in Dr.
Legion True’s case, … male children. That is, the World’s women’s worth of at least three of its very next
generation of marrying and / or fathering and / or ancestoring … men.
Right in line soooo Catholic Edinsmaier’s christianizing of my three Sons is –– exactly as had been the
schooling of Ms. Soraya Manutchehri’s two eldest boys (out of her nine – born children in 14 years’ time
… rather precise shades, not so Jury? Anyone? of Juggern Aut’s perpetual poking of Detanimod … )
by the woman’s sharia “law” – spewing Sperm Donor, Ghorban – Ali Manutchehri. Wanting to mawwy
another much, much younger DEhuman, a teenaged schoolgirl actually, and to support only one wife,
Mr. Manutchehri, the mama’s two oldest sons and her very own father –– in full and hooting view of the
entire town and right alongside all of those ‘educated’ males of ‘The Court’ which had just condemned
Ms. Soraya, falsely accused of infidelity but such for that specific daddee … The Inconvenient Wife so by
its islamic “law” on “these matters” so, so easily manmade now “no longer a human being” –– “freely” set
about murdering her, this suddenly made Non Human, by hurling stones aimed in 1986, right at and
striking her head, throat and thorax until this battered, eviscerated and unrecognizable corpse of a cur ––
“That Bitch!” –– she, the mother, altogether stopped breathing. Gutted. Made gone … she. In and out
with ‘The Court’ ’s ruling on the woman in about a dusty and bloodied hour’s time –– is all.
In an’ out –– literally, –– in and altogether out of life –– in about an hour!
‘Member, Jury, how it is that Dr. Herod Edinsmaier had, as well, wanted quite dead ... Dr. Legion True?
Only difference? Offing the True Twat himself –– in this christianizingly patriarchal country –– may have
cost him his doctoring position and, thus, his money. So Daddee – Herry –– as have as well so many, many
spousal daddees including Ghorban – Ali – Daddee –– simply “used” the most willing men of
‘The Court’ … ‘alone’ … to kill her off. Apparently … “quite constitutional” –– and within aaaaall of
their very, very manmade / “We tell ourselves thus and so –– cuz we, DaMen, sooooo can” ‘laws,’ too!
It would be no wonderment to me at all that a clash which the now nearly 16 – year – old Mirzah and
I evidently had had … may have centered around something woman – loathing such as pornography.
Mirzah had plenty of friends, of course, as agreeable, as kind and as amiable as he always, always appeared
to me to be with other guys his own age. But it was also true that for almost seven preteen and adolescent
years’ worth I had not a physical clue –– I hadn’t been (allowed !!! to be) around him since he was nine! ––
about his dealings, about Mirzah’s … comings, goings, thinkings and doings … with that same age group
of girls. And I do recall, with both Jesse and Mirzah back in Ames and Jesse’s so recent threat of alcohol
toxicity, having laid down some parameters about the perimeter of 6143 Havencourt, one of which –– for a
fact I know, –– would have been that no pornography of any kind exist on those premises for any reason
nor possessed under its roof by anybody.
That summer of 1995, in Ames the Truemaier Boys and I certainly had had no home computer and,
therefore, no easy internet access. The passageway, that is, to web – based pornography. It was not until
the next February’s Leap Day as I cleaned out the Havencourt condominium in my preparations for
altogether leaving behind our Teacup subdivision that I came across, wedged down behind what had been
Mirzah’s mattress, a computer – produced ‘business card’ done up on cardstock – quality paper and sized
appropriately to any general ones which I have ever seen. On white in simple, black – inked font were the
words, “Your Friendly Neighborhood Ho Service. Dial 666 – 5678 for a really, really good time. –––
Signed, Mirzah and Matt, Pimps. Confidentiality GUARANTEED.”
By 5 o’clock that hot and humid August afternoon, Mirzah and Jesse –– again … viciously made no longer
Iowans –– vanished.
505
The yellow truck pulled away; and with its doing so, I remember most … Herry’s smirkface. I also know
that the pillared Dr. Edinsmaier took away with him more, however, –– that aprovechar of his again! –– …
more that late afternoon than my two Truemaier Boys.
As I had scurried around the condominium, to its three bedrooms upstairs and down to the basement,
rounding up every bit of clothing and equipment and treasures I guessed –– in my concurrent and
profound sorrow! –– that the two Boys would want with them when back in West Virginia, my one –
vehicle garage went … … ‘unguarded.’
And, a couple of days later, when I needed that pliers? The one in the vessel resting upon Mirzah’s
wooden changing dais painted bronze with its so easy – to – clean Formica tabletop, the sturdiest ever with
baby supplies’ drawers built in underneath, the table which AmTaham True had, just 16 years earlier,
constructed from leftover scraps of remodeling materials when he first learned I had become pregnant for
the third time and Mirzah’s Grandpa had not wanted his Legion’s backbone to ache anymore from my
repeatedly crouching down on the floor multiple times a day to change his grandbambino’s diapers!
Well, my pliers? All of my tools had gone missing, too suddenly, as suddenly and at exactly when as had
Jesse and Mirzah! Including the galvanized metal, standard – sized toolbox in which Grandpa AmTaham
had collected them all for me, the general genre of receptacle which any respectable repairperson owns!
*
*
*
*
This man was not done with that particular day’s worth of taking. Still. Of Herry Edinsmaier’s taking
away from Legion True. With my Boys’ taking and with my tools’ taking, the man still had more ––
much, much more of aprovechar –– on His Agenda to accomplish.
Here I had been left thinking that the Good and Wonderful Healer had swung my two Boys right out onto
Interstate – 35 and was spiriting them out of Iowa as fast as that Ryder could possibly sprint, the entrance to
that freeway merely a half a mile from the one to our Havencourt Drive! But I was wrong on this
assumption!
Dr. Herod Edinsmaier, Mirzah and Jesse Truemaier –– my Boys –– and his Ryder took a wide, wide detour
–––– one so wide its width matched that of my mouth’s gaping. And of both Grace’s and Lynda’s, too!
What bulk, what mass of unmitigated effrontery, insolent entitlement and flippant, filliping arrogance the
entire bunkum of Dr. Herod Edinsmaier is –– especially when it comes to us … DEhumans. Lynda Kincaid
lived approximately five miles from me on Havencourt –– through some of the most tangled web of streets
and tortuous thoroughfares Ames possesses, particularly … at rush hour. It was to her home’s INTERIOR
that Corrupt Herry Edinsmaier’s entitlement and arrogance –– his taking –– next appeared. And it did so …
right away within that very same hour as when he had pilfered way away from me … both my two Kiddos
and all of my several tools.
“I can’t believe it,” I gasped. “You have to be kidding, Woman. Are you sure, Lynda?!”
I am still incredulous as I am thinking on it right now. All –– absolutely all –– of my girlfriends remain so
to this day … as well. It was a stunning performance by Herod Edinsmaier. Positively utterly staggering.
We –– my friends and I –– we were never “used” to his taking, to Pillared Father’s Rightster Herry’s
snatching up of my Boys whenever and wherever the time and the venue seemed to suit him; but we
women, at the least, knew that So Predictable Herod Edinsmaier was entirely capable of this androcentric
egregiousness, this patriarchal cruelty. We just never expected, although so very well – trained all of us
should have been by now! we just never expected Exalted Sperm Donor Edinsmaier’s next fucking
flagrancy. Let alone, so very, very mother – fuckingly soon! Within this very same –– “in – ‘nd – out
– in – about – an” –– hour! that “Fuck you, Bitches” – hour!
506
“O, JYeah, Legion, I am sure!” Lynda Kincaid exploded. “They’re gone. They’re all gone. The guns.
They are gone from the basement, Legion. Every last one of ‘em. Outta there! All of them! Taken.”
Months later, Jesse himself confirmed this home – invasion crime for all of us women: That Herry had
actually driven up and out of his own gettin’ – outta – the – Gutted – Bitch’s – town route is one thing in
and of itself. But Dr. Herod Edinsmaier had done so … for forbidden guns that he did not even own. ––
And never had!
As soon as Absconder Edinsmaier pulled his rented transport, UNconstitutionally yet domineeringly ––
and criminally –– loaded up both with Legion True’s two younger Boys and all of Legion’s garaged
toolbox’s contents, out of my driveway and back on to Havencourt’s street headed, I had so incorrectly
presumed, immediately on out to the interstate’s entrance quite proximally nearby and bound, yet again,
through those same five states on back to Grubtrop, West Virginia, I had telephoned Lynda at her National
Animal Disease Center desk. She had been the first friend to know –– to know of daMan’s same – style
abduction … yet again! And … yet again! … of another of Legion’s ripping heartbreaks. Lynda left work
to come to my side straightaway and, after cups of late – afternoon, hot sage tea and as much head –
banging truisms together about our passions and our struggles as could be emotionally borne, had driven
not back to work since it was now eventide but directly on over to her own home on Douglas Avenue.
I had not asked her to –– to do so; Friend Lynda Kincaid had thought all on her own to check. She told me
on her commute on over to her street, a revelation had come in to her brain, “This is Herod Edinsmaier
Legion’s dealing with. Of course, he just might do this. He just might! I’d better check the shelves
downstairs. Just in case.”
My telephone rang not more than 20 minutes after Lynda had exited my condominium’s front door.
These were all of the guns given over to Jesse after … after … the divorce and, more importantly, given
over to him by his Grandpa AmTaham but … but … but with one huge caveat: Given over from Grandpa
AmTaham to Jesse by way of me, … first. That is to say, Jesse’s grandfather had made crystal clear to
Jesse that his mother’s rules ruled … first! First and foremost. “Only when Legion says you may, can you
have any access for any reason, for hunting or for target practice that is, at all, Jesse! You must obey your
mother on this, Jesse. Verstehen? Verstehen, Young Man? I mean it. Do you understand me, Jesse?”
AmTaham True, as a matter of fact for years before this date of 22 August 1995, and when quite the
Cinqué – of – the – Amistad style Ancestor – in – Training, that is, when the man was alive, and for years
before Jesse’s freshest – ever 17th year (since his latest 15 August birthday had just passed) had tried and
tried and tried to have all three Boys understand that the ownership and the use of any gun was far, far
unlike the ownership and the use of any other item which the Boys would ever, ever possess.
Grandpa AmTaham had instructed all three Boys that at no time in their teen years’ development of
“a relationship” between themselves and their firearms were any of the guns and / or their ammunitions
to be brought out of safekeeping and handled by, or even just shown to, anyone else. As one may a new
volleyball or a new bicycle or how it is a kiddo gifted with a used, let alone a new, vehicle might take her
or his friends for a spin in it, for that matter. Developing an adult mindset circa the ownership and the use
of firearms, AmTaham True taught, was akin to the learning of no other lesson. And all –– absolutely all
–– of one’s minor years when she or he is still a teenager are to be determinedly spent up in the maturation
of this relationship between the person and the owned firearm. By the time the person becomes 18 years
of age, a parent or a grandparent –– and no other adult, that is –– needs to have instilled in this child enough
then: enough protecting wisdom on this firearms’ ownership matter. AmTaham had stated, as had Dr.
Powell during the several hunter safety session hours which Jesse and Zane had both enthusiastically, and
some time ago by then, attended in Storm County, that the properly licensed parents and grandparents held
entire and utter accountability in this endeavor because at no time did any other adult in the kiddos’ lives ––
–– not their Uncle Mark, not Daddee’s Pal Kevin home on his university’s semester break, not High School
Voc Ag or Shop Teacher Dick, –––– actually care about the muzzles’ locations and the emptied or filled
status of the guns’ chambers … as much as … does the children’s own –– properly licensed –– parents or
grandparents.
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*
*
*
*
“And now … most importantly, … Jury, for the FLIP / REVERSE clincher on this specific Tuesday’s
events: What woman do you know, Folks, can get clean, slick away with entering in to, home invasion –
style … thus, with the criminality of it all, her ex – husband’s friend’s home –––– and abscond with
daMan’s owned property, with all of his guns there for example, being stored inside his pal’s premises?
Huh, Jury? Name one woman for me, please, –– anywhere in the Whole World –– who can get away ––
clean, slick away –– with this act? One woman who can, in addition, TAKE with her inside this
ex – husband’s friend’s home … her very own daughter, too?! Take the teenaged daughter criminally inside
the residence, too, to serve as mama’s accomplice and as mother’s carrier – of – Daddee’s – guns back out to
the truck parked outside?! With this mother – modeled ‘Fuck you, Bastards’ action of Mama’s and have
back on herself for her having done these several crimes absolutely NO consequence whatsoever, Jury?!
Name one woman anywhere who can do these very same deeds as Herry Edinsmaier’s, please. One.”
Because that is what Narcissist and Passive – Aggressor Herod Edinsmaier who “is above the law because
he tells his pillared self –– and my three Truemaier Boys –– that they all are!” … did! And then, and by
now well in to the 21st Century, daMan is known to have gotten his modeling self and my Boy Jesse ––
with my Boy Mirzah serving as lookout sentry inside the truck’s cab … clean, slick away with it.
Ex – Husband Herry took, aprovechar – style and criminally, whilst demonstrating for both of my teenaged
sons then, how it is that men, just whenever and wherever they wanna, … can … simply take from women.
From multiple women. “Because He Can.”
We all know this, do we not, Jury? Because he can. “These are mere women, conscious these two happen to
be and not anesthetized,” Corrupt Herry reckoned, “but females, none the less. How utterly UNimportant …
DEhumans are! And to her Boys, Jesse and Mirzah, as well! I will demonstrate these very same thinkings
and doings, these comings and goings about women to them, too! And absolutely looooove doing so!”
Noooo different. The very same this is as … the two, elder boys who ‘helped’ their daddee, Ghorban –
Ali Manutchehri, murder stoned – to – death Soraya, their very own –– and siblings’ –– birthing mama.
Not a human being … she; their laws so state, the laws the men themselves “make” –– particularly as any
of these, on the whole of them all, pertain in any way to us DEhumans’ general slutlery. Remember, Jury,
that so common Arab maxim regarding the insatiability of graves, deserts and, of course, all … cunts?
The males? The men and the boys? They are … The Human Beings. And … The Only Human Beings.
Just exactly how UNimportant is … specifically … the one DEhuman, Dr. True? Whose first name,
Legion, is never to be Edinsmaier – uttered?! –– Ever?!
Consider –– yet again! –– that I had admonished us all, hadn’t I Jury, from deeeeep within Chapter 28,
to be certain to so nota bene the following phraseology out of Herry – Daddee’s 02 July 1994, quite queer
letter – thingy mailed to me?! That grammatically incorrect missive, displaying its stupendously stupid
sentence structure, which had been sent to me, the woman whom all of DaMen of ‘the Court’, an American
court –– it needs to be marked, remarked and so, so … well – remembered, an American court! –– had
ascribed as the Crazed and Whoring Mother –––– yet, as well, to whom Herry – Daddee, that flouncing and
professedly accountable father!, suddenly and right then so very, very soon after Jesse’s release from
hospitalization at the Blue Hazelnut Ridge, had decided to entrust to lovingly and correctly shepherd one
minor teen, Jesse, with as well in such a short, short span of time thereafter another, second one, Mirzah?!
“#8. Should … any matter arise … which we cannot settle under the terms of this agreement, … we both
agree … to immediately return to the present arrangement as set forth by the existing divorce decree with
modifications,” yada, yada, yada and so forth.” Signed, “Sincerely, Herod Edinsmaier” …
Only it is most clear, isn’t it Jury, that i) from Mirzah’s one wee, apparently whining telephone call back to
Daddee – Herry when the Evil – Mother Monster quite torqued him off some –– “she pissed off daMan”
508
(as with Ms. Soraya’s sons, Mirzah equaling this particular male this particular time) and ii) from Jesse’s
desiring for himself Legion True’s guns back in West Virginian woods, it is most clear, isn’t it, that none
–– utterly none–– of Proviso #8 had to its “declaration” any “sincerity” or any Truth … WHATSOEVER?!
Because it did not have to. Whether inside a courtroom with daMen’s status as “under oath” there or with
their promising or their avowing –– or even with their “evidence” – and witness – wowing there! True it is.
O, so head – bangingly true it is: Depending upon who you are, it is easier to lie to and deceive anyone
inside an American civil court of law and get clean, slick away with it than it is to lie to and deceive one’s
own mom and dad. It is easier to lie to and deceive an American civil court of law, which, we all know
from long back within Chapter Eight, is a judge or nearly an entire state’s district and appellate court
system’s worth of them! –– circa 23 or so of them! than it is to lie to and deceive your own minister, your
own teacher, your boss and co – workers, your spouse or even all three of your own children. It is, mind
you, easier to get clean, slick away with lying to and deceiving an American civil court judge about
anything, depending, of course, upon who you are, than it is to lie to and deceive yourself, Corrupt Herry!
Or outside of one. Outside courtrooms. As with Liar Herry’s mid – 1994 letter to me regarding “our both
agreeing” if “any matter arises.” “Heh. Heh. Heh, Woman!” I am yet again! reminding my own brainy
self. “These are men making ‘the rules’, the ‘laws.’ And no amount of, no accounting of Flip / Reverse as
to how these same men would feel or as to how the humans would like the trashing and the smashing, the
utter mucking up of their Constitutional rights to, O say, … breathing … if the DEhumans’ mother –
fucking –– if, O say, father – fucking –– is visited down upon them … matters … squat at all to them!”
“I ask, Jury, only one thing about the aprovechar – absconsion of my Boys and of my tools and guns, about
this home – invasion crime, on all of this one particular day’s worth of mother – fucking –––– all of it perped
by Hosing Herry, the Pillared Dr. Herod Edinsmaier, against Lynda Kincaid and against me, Dr. Legion True,
as well as against all three of my Truemaier Boys, … … the fucking outrage?! Where is the OUTRAGE?!”
509