Chapter 3
Dear Old Mom and Dad
"Let parents bequeath to their children not
riches, but a wealth of character."
~ James Joyce, 1835
It is both a blessing and a curse to have grown up bearing witness to a storybook romance. My parents were meant for one another. They were soulmates of the truest form. There is no doubt that they were perfectly matched. By their own accounts, no one else could have been able to stand living with either one of them. Yes, I know what true love looks like. It is a beautiful thing, but therein lies the curse. Once you've seen what a perfect pairing looks like, you can settle for no less. That's the sort of thing that can turn a man into a lifelong bachelor.
My father, John McNeal, was a wise and worldly man. Dad worked in automotive sales. He met people from all walks of life on that used car lot. All he had to do was look a customer in the eye to read him like a book. He could guess where they were from, what type of work they did, and exactly what type of car he might be able to offload on them. He was very often wrong, but he would deliver his assumptions with such conviction, that the customers generally didn't bother correcting him more than two or three times.
He was a man's man—never backing down from a fight, always quick to settle matters with his fists or a drinking contest, whichever suited his mood in the moment. As a boy, he was quite the rapscallion. The day he finally got kicked out of school for good was the same day he walked into his English class, took a swill of cheap rum straight from the bottle, challenged his classmates to an arm wrestling match, and then took a swing at the teacher. It was just as well that he got expelled. Once school was no longer a burden for him, he was able to focus on his career and pulling his weight at home.
Having grown up the younger of two boys, much like myself, my father had learned to be scrappy and resourceful from a very young age. His father had been a belligerent alcoholic and his mother was largely absent as a parent. She spent most of her days floating around in a haze of sedatives and cheap pink wine. His older brother, my Uncle Jim, could be something of a bully. He pushed Dad around quite a bit, which of course, only made him stronger. A tough upbringing like that gives a man character. He once described his upbringing to me very concisely. He told me, "When I was a child, I thought as a child and spoke as a child, but when I became a man I took that child out back and had him shot." He truly had a way with words. I think my father may have been a poet in a previous life.
My mother, Valerie McNeal, had a much more conventional upbringing. She was the older of two girls, raised by a loving mother and a doting father. They weren't wealthy by any means, but they were rich in familial bonds. The care and concern she was shown in her upbringing comes through in the way she cared for my brother and me. We were her pride and joy. She did all that she could to make sure we would grow up to be men of whom she could be proud.
Her father, rest his soul, passed away just before I was born. But she has remained close with her mother and sister all these years. When Dad would go out on one of his binges, my mother would be on the phone with her sister in a matter of minutes. After any of Mom and Dad's more passionate disagreements, you could bet that Valerie would spend the next week or two at her mother's house, decompressing from the excitement. It was a wonderful experience for me as a young boy to grow up witnessing that type of heartwarming bond between family members.
Mom was a very enterprising woman. I've already mentioned the genius of her sandwich preparation techniques. She ran our household with efficiency and expediency. She never held a job outside of the home, yet she always managed to scrape up enough money for us to get by. Dad would sometimes miss work for several weeks at a time when he went out on one of his drinking crusades. Mom always found a way to make up for those missing paychecks. Sometimes that meant selling off some of Dad's clothes and other belongings at the church rummage sale. Other times it meant sending my brother and me to perform manual labor at local businesses for a dollar or two an hour. Her favorite trick was to offer my services mopping the floors at the local taverns. She would remind me that if I saw Dad at one of the barstools to pass along the message that his family still existed if he ever sobered up. That way she could kill two birds with one stone. Yes, dear old Mom always managed to make ends meet. That's just what mothers do, I suppose.
Mom and Dad first met when she picked him up off the side of the road. My father had indulged a bit too much in his libations and had inadvertently parked his car upside down in a ditch. He was walking down the road, trying to hitch a ride, and my mother, being the saint that she is, took pity on him and gave him a lift. He asked to be dropped off at the next bar, but she took him home instead. As soon as Dad sobered up and his vision cleared, it was love at first sight.
It wasn't long before wedding bells were ringing. There was a bit of urgency in the matter of their nuptials. Valerie's father made it clear to John that it was either going to be the sound of wedding bells or the sound of a shotgun ringing in his ears. That's right, there was a baby on the way! After just a handful of threats against his life, my father did the right thing and decided to make an honest woman out of my mother. They were blissfully wed on a fine autumn day. My mother wore flowers in her hair and my father did his best not to drink himself into a stupor before the vows. Following the ceremony, they moved into the little ramshackle house that would be my childhood home. Several months later, Johnny would be born right there on the bathroom floor.
It was a picturesque beginning to a storybook romance that would shape the way I see the world. The passion of my parents' relationship was evident, even when I was a young child. I can still picture the fire in my father's eyes as he would scream at my mother that she was a hell born banshee and he couldn't wait to send her back to where she came from. My mother would spill tears of passion as she retorted with all the ways my father had ruined her life. Few couples are able to maintain that type of heat in their relationship as the years go by. I consider myself lucky to have grown up in such a loving home where I could be lulled to sleep by the sound of my parents' voices hurling heartfelt insults at one another, all in the name of love. I sometimes wondered if they purposely raised the volume of their candid banter to make sure I got the full benefit of being comforted by their heated affection for one another.
I recall one lovers' spat in particular that I would think back on for years to come. My mother came home from the market and found my dad passed out on the living room floor at two in the afternoon. She kicked him hard in the ribs and hollered, "Wake up you no good cheating son of a bitch!" My father rolled over with a groan and asked what she was carrying on about. She said she had heard from one of the store clerks that Dad had knocked up a barmaid and that she was carrying his child. What a rascal my father was! He said it was true, I'm sure just to get a reaction out of her. He loved getting her all worked up about nothing. He thought it was one of the funniest things in the world to see her face turn red with fury. Well, the joke was on him this time. She told him to go join his secret family and to stop ruining her life. Then she threw him out on his ass. I will never forget the way my brother and I laughed and laughed. I'll also never forget the fiery emotion my parents shared in that moment. It has stuck with me through all these years. That's the type of passion I want in my own relationship. I will not settle for less.
Often, after these lovers' quarrels, my father would see fit to bestow upon me some of his sage wisdom. I would wait anxiously as the two of them screamed at one another to see if Dad was going to storm out for a week or two. If he didn't, that was when he usually saw fit to give me some advice. I would stow away every treasured word in my developing brain. To me, his nuggets of wisdom were priceless. Some of these words of guidance I hold so dear to my heart that I shall never share them with another living soul. However, some I shall share with you now.
I would not be the man I am today if Dad hadn't taken me aside and told me the value of friendship. He advised me that a man should seek to make friends everywhere he goes. The more friends he acquires, the easier it will be to use them as stepping stones as he claws his way to the top. He told me that the best way to ensure career success or to claim a woman as your own was to gain the trust of many. Dad instructed me to leverage that trust to get what I wanted and then, one by one, stab those friends in the back. Whether he meant literally or figuratively, I was never quite sure. At any rate, that advice has proven valuable to me time and time again. To put it succinctly, if you can make more money, screw your friends.
On other occasions he gave me fantastic advice on relationships with women. Whenever I found myself in a situation where I was confused or disturbed by the actions of a woman, I would recall Dad's words of wisdom: all women are psychopathic she-demons that can't be trusted nor understood. I would sometimes confound myself by trying to find the logic in the way a girlfriend would steal my car or sleep with my brother or try to set my hair on fire. Then I would remember my father's words and my world would make sense once again. Don't trouble yourself with trying to understand the mind of a woman, my friend. They are not of this world.
My mother, of course, is the exception that proves the rule. Never have I met such a loving and devoted woman. Even now we maintain a very close relationship. We get together at the holidays and we fall right back into our traditional family roles. Mom, always trying to toughen me up for the cruel world, will enumerate all the ways I've disappointed her over the years. She holds me up to a high standard. That's part of what drives me to be a better man. I can only hope to be half the man my father was. Dad, of course, drank himself into an early grave. At the funeral, I told Mom that she needn't worry. Dad may have left big shoes to fill, but I was up to the task. She then told me she'd rather I fill his casket than his shoes. Always a joker, that woman.
Yes, both my mom and my dad played an important role in molding me into the man I am today. They are a big part of what makes Bill McNeal tick. They held up the example of what a marriage should be and I decided from a very young age that I would not settle for less. Just as they demonstrated for me the love between husband and wife, it was my brother who gave me my first example of friendship.