The Micronesian Elvis

When my mother becomes intoxicated she undergoes a number of transformations. Perhaps the most profound of these is her adamant position that she is Jesus Christ reborn. When I was young I used to think this was the worst that could ever happen to her. There were times when I had to hide in the laundry hamper, so that my mother wouldn’t find me and elaborate on exactly how she was filled with prophetic spirits and the spirit of the Holy Ghost. Naively for years, I firmly believed that her alcohol-induced insanity was the peak of horror. With age and experience I found out I was wrong. I was in the fifth grade when my mother decided that she no longer wanted to be a mid-level mall manager. She wanted to be a singing sensation.

“One day, Brandon” she would say looking at her reflection while putting on thick layers of mascara, “I’m going to be a star, and then I’m going to get the fuck out of this place.” It was one of the many times my mother let me know that if she ever “made it big” I was going to be left behind. I remember asking her why she wanted to leave me so much. She laughed crazily and told me that she “deserved to be happy too.”

Using whatever passes for logic in whatever passes for her mind she figured that Karaoke bars were her path to stardom. She became a total Karaoke whore. Every weekend she would go out to “sing for the crowd.” Every night she would return drunk and tell my father “Oh God, they all loved me… they were eating out of my hands. I could be like the Judds… take my baby girl with me and be famous.” Then she would sneer at my father, “And I wouldn’t have to put up with any stupid Mill-Workers out in Hollywood.” My mother would then drink herself to sleep and wake up in the morning, hung over, to drive me to school half an hour late.

Deciding that she was already a star on the Karaoke scene, she decided she could no longer be bound by common morality. A series of affairs soon followed. The only time my father ever hit my mother was when she confessed to kissing someone named “Brad.” According to her Brad had also been so much better to her than a stupid, illiterate, mill-worker of a husband that she didn’t even understand how my father could be angry. As usual, I listened to most of these arguments pinned behind our refrigerator, enjoying the way the humming of the motor made my skull vibrate. As I child I spelled comfort K-O-H-L-E-R.

Eventually, I came home one day and knew without asking that things had finally snapped. My father had shaved off his mustache. The only time this had happened before was when his mother had had a stroke. “Dad, what’s wrong?” He didn’t tell me. He just sat there, his upper lip naked, brooding into a bottle of beer.

When I came downstairs two hours later I found that my father had moved in with my Aunt Debbie. He had taken my sister with him, and my brother and I were left all alone in the house. I was alone for six hours before my mother came home. I found out in short order, from the presence of the wild-eyed, brown-skinned man standing next to her that she was “in love, baby.”

Mike was a singer. In fact, as my mother prattled on drunkenly I was given the impression that he was in fact the Micronesian version of Elvis Presley… who unfortunately could not make “st” sounds. For the entire night I got to hear about how he was from an island called Ponape which was “the bess” “firss” and “moss” important island to ever exist. Ponape had in fact invented almost everything in the world that was worth inventing, before it was stolen by the “Wess.” I tried to leave several times. His hand always found its way to my shoulder to hold me steady before I could go.

That night I got to hear him howl on a broken version of “Heart Break Hotel” as I held my weeping younger brother. At the end of the performance my mother made sure we both applauded, before we were finally released. We were both ordered not to be rude to our new guest. Giving someone a dose of reality is apparently one of the rudest things you can do.

Afterwards, I heard my mother screaming at the top her lungs from the other side of the house. She was not injured. Draw your own conclusions.

The next morning, as I got up and got myself and my little brother ready for school, my “new father” was shuffling through the homework I had left on the counter. My mother had to sign so that I could show my teacher she had seen my grades. My step-father had drawn pictures of vaginas, penises, and breasts, on the backs of all of them.

When I asked him why he had done such a thing he laughed a hyena like laugh and drank some beer. From then on I learned to forge my mother’s signature and check my homework before I turned it in. For some reason the bastard never learned to draw them on with pen.

It was a hard transition at first. I was unused to being dropped off at school on time. I was also unused to having the person that drove me swear at the top of their lungs at my schoolyard friends, just to embarrass me. Never before had I sweat so much when the teachers told us they would be calling our parents to ask for volunteer field trip chaperones. I thought Mike driving me to school in his underwear made him an asshole and an embarrassment. My mother taught me that such outrages were necessary in order to feel truly “alive.”

I learned so many things from Mike. I remember driving over a bridge with him at 90 mph, as he looked at me and laughed asking if I wanted “to die with a filthy fucking islander like himself.” He was fun that way. Like the time I came home and discovered that the entire library I had accumulated over years by saving up dollars and nickels from here and there had disappeared. Before he would tell me where he had hidden it, Mike demanded proof that said library even existed, and if it did, receipts to show that every book belonged to me. I found the books later, outside in the garbage bin, covered in filth.

My sister and I, for the first time in our lives, agreed on one thing: Mike was an evil motherfucker. I hated him for the unnecessary complications he introduced into my life. My sister hated him because, at the age of 13, she was no longer able to sleep in the middle of my parents. My younger brother withdrew completely into the world of on-line gaming. For years he would not talk to anyone about anything unless it involved moving a computer imaged player around in a computer generated simulation.

The only comfort I had was that one day the Mad Micronesian would have to leave. My mother was not capable of real love. Without real love, I figured, the artificial bonds that bound them together could not last. Imagine my surprise when I came home from school one day and heard the following words: “Brandon, I’m pregnant! Mike and I are getting married!”

That night I bought two hasps and two locks, and put them on the door to my room. I never left home unless they were on.