Mistakes Were Made

The thing is, I always thought I liked Dweez. Well, I thought he liked me, too, which made it easier to like him, even though he was from SoCal and mostly ate steak. Well done. At least he was preferable to the daughter-in-law who wouldn't eat things with faces. Or was it mothers? She would cheerfully have eaten her own mother, I think, given half an excuse, except she'd probably have had to cook her and that was never an option. Early in our acquaintance, I watched my son cut up her chicken for her. At that point, she would still ingest animal protein, as long as she didn't have to prepare or dissect it. But that's another chapter in the Bad Mother-in-law handbook.
I liked Dweez because. . . well, he could converse intelligently. He read. He watched reality shows and MTV and just about any movie ever released, especially if it had a downbeat, noir sort of twist to it. We all saw 'What Do Women Want?', while we waited impatiently for Pippa to get around to being born. We all felt ripped off by its superficiality. Stuff like that. Dweez would talk about moving us all into a duplex or triplex as we aged, so taking care of us in our dotage would be more tenable. I found that endearing.
I didn't want to do it, though. I didn't want to move all the way across the country, into some brownstone with endless staircases and do all my shopping by subway. Now that I think about it, I didn't want Dweez in charge of my financial or physical life. So, even though he almost always had his good face on and exhibited something resembling patience when a visit was occurring, I must have glimpsed the feral disdain under the surface.
You know how when someone seems to like you, seems interested, you kind of perk up and tell them things about yourself that you mostly don't talk about? Personal things, slightly embarassing things? Because you're opening a door inside yourself so the new friend can come in and visit. How many times is that really a good idea?
Thespia says that Dweez basically always found me and the mate kind of ho-hum. Having heard him savage several one-time friends (or did Thespia like them more than Dweez did?) I can only imagine what he had to say about us in our absence. Oh, yeah, I can - and do - imagine it, even though I don't much want to.

A crime scene

Saturday, noon. Thespia and Pippa are having a Mom and Daughter day - lazing around in their sleep togs, munching on strawberries and toast, reading and thinking about what videos they might want to see and whether Pippa just has to run Across the World one more time. And there's this sound from the street. Gunfire? Well, yeah. Drug house around the corner, disputes heat up since everybody's packing. Somebody's car takes multiple wounds. Cops and yellow tape all over the place, there being little else to do in the middle of a Spring Saturday.
"Daddy, we live in a crime scene!" Pippa says, as she makes the Sunday morning transfer. D'weez is electrified: must get daughter out of neighborhood, must sell house. Well, he's been wanting to sell the house ever since he moved out of it and here's a perfect reason. But then there's the history: he moved them to this edgy neighborhood, into a house that sucked money out of every available source, for some reason and against everyone's advice. "You have a kid," we said. "She could better live in a neighborhood where at least there's a corner store. Bed-Stuy? Maybe when you guys get older and richer and Pippa's not living at home anymore."

Turf war

"It's not as bad as I thought it would be," Pippa said, in reference to being a six and three-quarters year old person with two homes. After all, she is a Brooklyn person, albeit a small one, and lives in an atmosphere where having two homes is not uncommon. She didn't say how bad she had imagined it. She did say that it was nice not to be living with two people who either weren't talking at all or were fighting. As an only child, she learned early when to strategically disappear.
Now that The W, or Dweez, as he began to be known in Thespia's camp, lived right around the corner from PS Good and Plenty, he demanded that Pippa's days be divided exactly equally between himself and Thespia. Pippa does love him, even though he often causes her brow to wrinkle with his forgetful ways. She has to take good care of her Dad, as it has not been demonstrated to her satisfaction that he is capable of taking good care of himself.
Dweez's half of each custodial week begins either Saturday afternoon or Sunday morning, in alternating weeks. Pippa goes home to Thespia's on Wednesday, after school. Dweez finds a lot of pleasure in loitering around the school yard, gabbing with other parents. Mostly mothers. And what a lot of admiration he gets for being such a devoted Dad! And what a lot of sympathy he gets for his efforts to function as a single father! And what a lot of fun it has been for Thespia to field the questions of her students' parents, after they find out from The W that her marriage has gone south!
Dweez also cruised by Thespia's classroom, whenever the spirit moved him. Whether the students were present didn't concern him when he had a message of the utmost importance to deliver. Laying down Dweez's Law can not be done by phone, computer or text message, apparently. He only gets the bang for his buck out of face to face conflict: sure to occur when he disrespects his adversary's workplace. School security was not available to help Thespia deal with these invasions. There is only one security officer and she can't leave her post in the front hall during the morning influx. The teachers are discussing implementing a policy to bar the parents from the corridors outside the classrooms unless they have prior authorization to attend a conference or an event. They have been discussing this for the past six months, without resolution. What overworked staff member should be asked to assume the policing of the hallways?

The Siege

In addition to being ornery and paranoid, weasels foul their environment. The W moved into the family living room, right next to the kitchen, when he, Pippa and Thespia returned to Brooklyn. After all, that's where the big screen TV and the games were located, as well as the DVD player, the audio equipment and all the CDs - pretty much anything a lad could want to keep happily busy and divert himself from the hell of a home search. He was moving out, under protest. As soon as he found a place. Not just any place: a place in the neighborhood of the elementary school where Thespia taught and Pippa attended. Pippa was about to become a two home child. Thespia was, of course, not consulted about whether The W's proximity to her work place was in any way distasteful.
Shortly, Thespia noticed an absence of dishes and eating utensils. Things that had vanished did not reappear. Pans piled up in the kitchen sink each day while she and Pippa were at school. Finally, out of forks, she cautiously ventured into the living room during one of The W's infrequent absences.
First there was the smell. Tired socks, wet carpet, something very, very pungent and stale, and a peculiar, alarming musk, close cousin to polecat odor. Then there was the mess: bedding heaped on the floor, CDs and DVDs spilling from the coffee table, crunching underfoot, clothing discarded on every surface, windows smudging. Everything she touched was sticky. Every cup and glass held the dregs of some murky, volatile liquid. She gathered up some forks and knives and shut the living room door firmly as she left it. She and Pippa began taking their meals in the master bedroom, washing their dishes in the tub and hiding their silverware in Pippa's sock drawer.
Miraculously, The W found a place to rent and rented it. He immediately gathered up the paltry few of their possessions (TV, CD player, computers, games) that he deemed worthy of making the move. Then he began to shop: beds for himself and Pippa, new area rugs, dishes, cookware, art. Not too much later, Thespia opened the mail to find that The W, always in charge of the checkbook, had paid no household bills - including the mortgage - for two months. She also discovered that he had raided their equity line, to the tune of $55,000 and there seemed to be nothing to show for it except his ever-mounting number of new household goods. Just before the neighbors called the health department, the W moved, taking the car.