A Bed Time Story

I doubt if anyone else happens to recall some time ago a Lindy McDowell column which was posted on Slugger.

I thought I was being dense in not quite grasping it but apparently I wasn't the only (see, circles and Billy Pilgrim in the comments section). What I did garner is that people are fond of simple morality tales, especially when the topic is complicated. So I thought I would try my hand at one.
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There was once a woman who had three sisters. They lived in the South and she in the North. There came a time when their parents finally divorced after a very long and very abusive relationship (he was from across the channel). After a three year divorce process during which there was much acrimony on all sides he packed up and left. The mother naturally felt that she should get custody of the four children, but the father felt otherwise. He had always had a special relationship with his daughter from the North, though not out of entirely benevolent feelings of love (though he tried to tell himself that he did truly love his daughter), but because he also liked to stick it to the mother and the other three daughters as she, the daughter from the North was the most like him. The Daughter in the North felt split in two as she knew that on one level she did intrinsically belong with her other three sisters and her mother, though a part of her felt above them and she did enjoy all of the presents that her father lavished upon her. So in the end of the squalid divorce proceedings which were settled in London they agreed to split up and though the spoils were not as absurdly distributed as some divorces, the settlement was vexed none the less and caused more arguments between the remaining three sisters and the mother about whether or not accept the settlement, which was eventually accepted. And so they all went about their crappy little lives on their crappy little island.

Years passed and though there were three sisters they only had three children to the lot of the them. The first was born right after the divorce and was to be quite honest, anal, uptight, had authoritative tendencies and a thing for the color blue. Though he claimed to love his mother there was a barely concealed loathing in his voice and a barely suppressed desire that it was he who the rightful heir to his grandfather. The second son was born out of the squabbling following the divorce proceedings and though he was the secondary son he was without a doubt the "man of the house". He was roguish, charming, and undeniably rotten to the core. He always talked about how the fourth sister in the North should rejoin the rest of the family, but did only that, talk. The third son, though of the finest stalk the sisters had to offer and who had been around as long as anyone could remember was never the less the runt of the three brothers and constantly went back and forth between the two about who he supported in their constant squabbling. There were of course in later years a few other offspring from the second brother which were so horrific that he attempted to drown them at birth, but they survived and were put on life support where they remain. But I am interrupting the flow of my story and jumping ahead.

The Fourth sister, who lived all alone in the house that her father had built for her, had many children. The first was actually from before the divorce and was not only the spitting image of the father but was even more strident than him in many ways. In his own mother he tried to suppress any connection that she felt with the rest of her family and reminded her that she was in her father's custody. He had a thing for orange and bowler hats which he insisted upon walking around with in July. Though with his pasty complexion and paunch it did not really suit him he tried to convince himself that this was all the rage and would make his grandfather proud of him as he thought that he had done something similar at one point during the marriage. It should be pointed out here that the grandfather was a notorious womanizer who had no qualms about using his position of authority to force himself on women wherever he went and that he had little bastards all over the world, some who loathed him and others like the the son from the North who loved him and desperately wanted to be loved in return. For a time the oldest son was able to keep an order on things by reminding them all that they were after all, a family, though he was only to happy to beat the two sons who resembled their mother's side of the family and indulging his other younger brother who while inheriting all of his vitriol for his mother's side seemed rather uncouth to the oldest son from the North. And here too was a runtling who tried to make everyone happy but yet who was universally loathed by all the other siblings.

Though as we can tell from our story this was quite the dysfunctional family everyone liked to pretend that everything was hunky-dory. If one of the sons from the North showed up to dinner with a black eye or strange bruises, nothing was said. At the dinner table when the oldest lectured them on how lucky they were to be with under their father's protection instead of miring in the poverty that the mother and her three daughters had inherited were met with mumbles from the the two who resembled their mother while the uncouth one shouted "never, never, never!" and the runt tried to pacify everyone by asking, "Who wants some pudding?".

And so life went on as it always does and life in the lonely house became a rehearsal of things left unsaid while the buried life took root. There had been another son who resembled the mother but he had always been sickly, lame and thankfully passed on before he could cause anyone any trouble. Of the two sons who resembled the mother there was also a marked difference. Of the two, one was generally well behaved and mannered and while sometimes incurring the wrath of the oldest son and receiving a beating was generally happy and was more or less willing to acquiesce to the oldest son though he wished things were different. The other son was solitary and sullen. Like so many other children spawned from a broken home he spent much if his time lost in pondery. He dreamed of how life had been before his grandfather had come along and how life could've been if the four sisters were together with their mother as they had been ever so briefly when she had first told her husband that she wanted him gone. He did most of his dreaming alone in the nooks, and crevices of the house. Crawling around the rafters in the attic or in the root cellar, anywhere to avoid his brothers who were only too happy to give him a hiding and tell him how lucky he was to be there even though nobody wanted him.

Again the years passed in this manner until one day when something as innocent enough as pulling down a poster in the sullen boy's room set off a monstrous row which the eldest son couldn't contain on his own. He thought of asking his well mannered sibling for help but decided that no, he could do it himself. Indeed the uncouth one was saying that if the oldest son couldn't keep the sullen boy under control then he would (which was why he tore down the poster in the first place). So after trying to offer a few desultory sweets which assuaged his conscious that he had tried to be nice he took off his belt to give him another hiding. This time though the boy had had enough and instead of submitting to the oldest son he raged against him and his uncouth brother with all of his might. The two brothers called for the well mannered brothers help in subdueing the sullen brother though all he did was scold him (a rather annoying habit he had developed was his sense of moral superiority to all those around him). The fifth son tried to assuage the situation by playing WAR's "Why Can't We Be Friends" really loud but all this did was get the neighbors to call in their grandfather.

Not that this did any good as the formerly sullen and now raging son was bitterly fighting with his oldest brother, his uncouth brother and their grandfather all at the same time. He even tried to burn down the house and he did manage to damage a great deal of it. The fighting continued for a long time. The formerly sullen boy wanted to get his cousins involved but despite their words of wanting to reunite the family they were content to wallow in their own dysfunctions. Though they still sent non-denominational Christmas cards. The fighting continued.

Until eventually with everyone worn out the offspring of the three sisters and the grandfather and the sons from the North all agreed to stop fighting. And as they lie there gasping for breath, and exchanging recriminations they finally noticed that the their bitterness and hatred which had previously taken root had grown and blossomed into a twisted tree which bore a bitter fruit. The house in ruins (though still standing) and the grandfather glad to be on his way, as were the cousins, left the children of the North alone in each other's company with only the bitter fruit of their own creation to sustain them while they traded insults and fought over the scraps of what their mother had left them.
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And just remember that if you don't like it that at least I don't get paid to write this drivel.