Breaking Brooklyn (8 page)

While it had been a nice evening up to that
point it wasn't what I had dreamed about. Maybe that's why I drank
so much. I didn’t feel like a princess. Was it because deep down in
my heart I knew Sam wasn't really my prince? I’m not sure why, but
I am grateful of one thing... No one questioned our marriage. They
seemed to believe Sam and I were two young kids in love who wanted
to spend the rest of our lives together. I know this made my mother
happy.

August 22, 1978

It’s been about a month since the wedding.
Thank God my morning sickness has subsided! I spend most days in
our little apartment sleeping. My visits to the Riviera Club are
much less frequent due to the fact that my belly is showing. The
only people that know I am pregnant are a few close friends and our
families. I’m sure when I can no longer hide my baby bump the
gossip start and the calculations will begin.

“
When did they get
married?”

“
She looks much farther along than
just a couple of months. Sam must have knocked her up. That’s why
he married her.”

“
I wonder when she is
due?”

“
I wonder if she is going back to
school in September to finish her senior year?”

I can just hear all the rumors now. I don't
care that much, but my mother will. She is always thinking about
how this has affected her… and oh, the poor baby. I know she is
worried about what kind of mother I will be. She continually
reminds me that my partying ways will be over. That life will no
longer be about me, but rather my baby and my family life with Sam.
Oh how I resent these comments. I want her, Sam, and everyone else
to know that I will get my life back! I will be a good mother to
this baby. I it will not stop me from doing things for me, like
getting my body back and looking for a modeling agent.

I desperately want a modeling career. I will
not let this baby will not stop me!

November 14, 1978

I gave birth to John Michael O’Malley at 1:30
pm yesterday. He is 8 pounds 1 ounce and 20 ½ inches long with no
hair! Sam and I named him Jack after his paternal grandfather.
Labor was far worse than I expected. The last several weeks have
been miserable since sleeping was so difficult. It started with
cramping in my back, which crept around to my stomach. I woke Sam
at 2 in the morning and we headed down to Methodist Hospital. After
almost 10 hours of labor and two whole hours of pushing, Jack
finally arrived.

When he was placed in my arms I didn’t know
what to feel. It was almost like the nurse handed me a doll. I
didn’t FEEL anything but tired and sore. All I could think about
was having Sam get me a milkshake from Steak-n-Shake. Is this bad?
Should I be feeling like I am madly in love with this little being?
He is awfully cute, but he looks just like him, “him” not being
Sam.

I thought about how I might be deceiving Sam
when I filled out the birth certificate. I know deep down that Jack
is not his baby. I have started to believe my own lie. The last
time we slept together before our break up was Valentine’s Day. He
had taken me to Hollyhock Hill. After dinner we decided to head to
Holliday Park for a hike. Having sex in the car was not ideal, but
both of our parents were home for the night and there were no other
options. After we finished, Sam asked about my plans for the
upcoming weekend. I told him I was going to a movie with Julie,
Scott, and Greg. He said it sounded like a double date. I assured
him that we were all just friends. (Sometimes Greg and I were
friends with benefits. Greg wasn't boyfriend material, but he was
so cute.)

This led to a huge argument that ended with
Sam dropping me off at the Peaches Record Store on the Broad Ripple
strip. That was the end. Until the day I arrived on his porch step
to tell him I was pregnant.

A part of me feels guilty for harboring this
secret. I know exactly who the father is. The thought of it makes
me sick!

My plan has worked. So, I have to move past
these guilty thoughts. I need to focus on my life with Sam and
Jack.

The birth certificate reads……

Mother: Cynthia Ann Napier
Father: Samuel Paul O’Malley
Child: John Michael O’Malley
Birthdate: November 14, 1978

December 1978

It’s Christmas time! The Broad Ripple
villagers are out and about getting ready for all the festivities,
while I’m stuck in this little house on Crestview with a baby who
won’t stop crying. I’m alone almost all the time. Sam works nights
then picks up extra shifts on his days off. My only outlet is to
take Jack to my mother’s or to Mary Alice’s so I can go out with my
friends. I have been doing this more often and I think Sam is
starting to resent the fact that I am spending so much money. He
gives me an allowance which I seem to go through faster and faster
each week.

I tell my mom I am going to the grocery or a
movie then I meetup with my old drinking buddies at the Monkey’s
Tail. Part of me feels bad about this, but I am just so bored. I
feel so cooped up at home. I find myself constantly thinking about
the life I had planned before I got pregnant.

My dream of modeling is now a broken reality.
My plan was to move to New York City after high school and get
signed with the Ford Modeling Agency. I am only ten pounds away
from my pre-baby weight. I know in my heart this will never happen.
I am stuck in this little house, with this little baby, and with
little love for the man I am married to.

March 16, 1978

I can’t believe I haven’t written in so long.
So much is still the same, yet so much has changed. My double life
has doubled back on me. It all started when I was pulled over for
drinking and driving. Of course, my father-in-law tried to help as
best he could, getting the charges dropped. But a few weeks later I
was busted with marijuana. Greg and I had decided to get high
before a 4 pm movie at Glendale. We stopped by Broad Ripple Park
for a quick smoke down by the river. On our way back to the car a
police officer stopped us. He started asking questions, like why we
weren’t in school. We were so stoned we couldn’t stop laughing.
Then the officer noticed a pipe sticking out of Greg's blue jeans.
Now he had probable cause to search my handbag, where he found an
ounce of pot. I was arrested for possession of an illegal
substance.

I was numb. I just didn’t care anymore. This
time my father-in-law was furious. He couldn’t even look at me, let
alone speak to me. He did his best to keep the arrest from Sam, but
eventually he told him. As usual, Sam was silently angry. I begged
him to talk to me. I thought he would yell, but his silence was far
worse. I grew up in a home where we argued and got our feelings
out. The silent treatment was a new experience for me. I didn’t
like it at all. When Sam did speak, all he could say was that he
was extremely hurt and disappointed with me. That was
it!

My next “offense was the final straw for Sam.
Drunk and high one evening with my friends I left the bar with this
cute guy who had been buying me drinks all night. Though he was a
stranger, there was a confidence about him that turned me on. Sam
was a cop, but he wasn’t very manly at all. I felt like the man in
our relationship, which made sex with Sam a very undesirable thing.
The guy from the bar was all man. There was something about a bad
boy that got me hot. Plus, they know how to fuck the way I like it,
hard and rough. We had nowhere to go so we ended up fooling around
in his car.

While I was going down on him we got busted by
a cop. The next thing I knew we were charged with public indecency,
performing a lewd act in public. Looking back now, I think I wanted
to get caught so I could get out of the miserable existence I was
living.

The charges swept through the entire police
station like lightning. Sam heard it before his father had a chance
to tell him. Humiliated and upset, he left early from his shift. He
went back to our house, and began packing. I tried to talk to him,
to explain I was just acting out because I was bored. I would have
never done any of those things if I had not been drunk and high. I
begged and pleaded, telling him I would get counseling. When he
finished packing his suitcase and duffel bag he left. He didn’t
even say goodbye. He shut me out of his life completely. He wanted
nothing to do with me. The next day Sam filed for divorce. Oh my
god how am I going to support myself and my baby. I'm still in high
school and Sam will not be able to support us financially. Why did
I push him away. I'm am so screwed! I shouted inside my head. I
guess the only option for me now is to head back to Mommy Dearest
or Drunken Daddy.

CHAPTER SEVEN

“True love is finding your soulmate
in your best friend”
~
Faye Hall

Jack Napier - Day 18

As a child I was shuffled between a feuding
mother and daughter like a chess piece that my mom held hostage,
but my Grandma Daisy cherished.

Living with my mother never lasted for long.
That's because we lived with Grandpa Bob. Together they were a
full-fledged codependent couple. Their relationship was not one of
a father and daughter. It was more like Sid Vicious and Nancy
Spungen.

After my mother’s wedding, Grandma Daisy filed
for divorce and Grandpa Bob disappeared for several years. I think
when he returned and came back into my mother’s life he tried to
make up for not being there after she got married.

There was uncomfortable undertone to the way
they interacted with each other. Nevertheless, they were
inseparable, always there to support each other’s addiction. When
Grandpa Bob got really drunk he would start pimping my mother out
to his friends like she was a prostitute. When this happened I'd
sneak out to my treehouse and draw. I don't even want to know what
went down when I was gone. Like Grandma Daisy once told me, "Some
things are better unknown; revealed they can leave a permanent
scar." Grandma was right, I didn't have much room for another scar
and scars on top of scars start to disfigure one’s soul.

Grandpa Bob would go on drinking binges,
disappearing for weeks at a time. When this happened, my mother
would be stuck with me. This was never a good situation. She would
try to behave because she knew Grandma Daisy would find out, which
would give her grounds to get custody of me. My mother wasn’t about
to give up her shiny chess piece. So when she couldn’t cruise the
bars, the party was brought to the house. It was pretty horrible.
There was an endless parade of men in and out of the house. Having
a ten year old kid around was definitely a buzzkill. During these
times my mother would break down and send me to Grandma
Daisy’s.

At one point it got so bad Grandma Daisy
forced my mom to enroll me in the elementary school in her
district. This way she didn’t have to keep driving me back and
forth. School 45 was just a few blocks from her house, so I could
walk to school in the morning and back in the afternoon. Each
public school in Indianapolis had an individual number. There were
about forty-eight in the city. I swear I had already attended about
half of them.

That year, I was starting fourth grade for the
second time. My mother’s instability was affecting my grades. Even
though I was held back I was still way behind the other kids in my
class. I felt stupid, but school hopping made keeping up more than
difficult. Especially for a kid who lived with a mother who didn’t
give a shit about him. Like many things in life if it hadn’t
happened this way I would have missed out on something
great.

I will never forget the day I met my soul
mate. Although she wasn't my soul mate at the time, I knew the
minute we met I could love her forever. I think people often
misunderstand the meaning of soul mate. It's so much more than love
itself. It's what love eventually evolves into. It's what we feel
when we are old, when vanity and lust have withered away, when the
only thing that matters is true friendship.

Like the beginning to all good love stories, I
noticed her from across the room. She was the most beautiful girl I
had ever laid eyes on. My body was consumed by a feeling I had
never felt before. It was a mixture of fear with a jolt of pure
adrenaline.

I was the new kid in the class getting the
“who’s that" stare. Brooke’s earthy green eyes focused on me, only
me. Her glance made my heart pound. It felt like a thousand
butterflies had invaded my stomach.