the 11th day of September, but the year is ... ... y1990

! of Mother - Fucking's Chapter 27: pp 261 - 279 !

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What chanting pentastich, what witchy incantatory verity have I myself, Dr. Legion True, intoned at the very prologuing outset of this entire Mother – Fucking Saga, “True it is.  O, so head – bangingly true it is!  No one else ever thinks that your passions and your struggles are anywhere near as fantastically important as you yourself think that they are.  You can write letters to the editor, you can give speeches, even just little, daily ones, to anyone who’ll listen, you can send a passel of e – mail transmissions to folks who are glad to hear from you and to the ones who never want to hear from you.  It doesn’t make a bit of difference.” 

True it was and could not have been truer:  I and ‘my case’ had not had anywhere near that past summer’s diligent attention of this $125 – an – hour attorney way down there 45 miles off inside the state’s capital city. 

Not once. 

 

Not once had I “made a bit of difference” … enough … to her so that Attorney Klutz – full well paid to do so – had given over to me and to ‘my case’ her thorough and complete attention, so that Attorney Klutz had –   at all – expended on ‘my case’ the absolutely necessary preparatory efforts for which she had accepted retaining engagement and hire and was … allegedly … working! 

I was fucking stunned.  Besides Grace and László and everyone else in on ‘my case’, too!  None of us had had one iota of an inkling, not one fucking smelly smidgen, that Ms. Carlotta Klutz was, to the bloody, all – encompassing extent that she was, involved in this – other – deadly case. 

Until that TV news screen just 87 hours before the knocking knell sounded from Judge Sol Wacotler Seizor’s gavel which opened again ‘my own case’, that Polk County situation hadn’t even entered any of our minds since its first appearance in the Register headlines three months earlier.  Fuck, I myself couldn’t even afford the newspaper nor the time to read it elsewhere anyhow.  Everybody called me the very next day to express their wonderment and concern; we all that Saturday had had no mother – fucking idea of what was about to foul all over me and my Truemaier Boys with the start of our own disgusting, deadly and solidly shit – filled impaction:  Act Two of The Opera’s Part Two was to begin promptly at 9:00 o’clock, Tuesday, the 11^th day of September, one day after Lionel’s birthday.  Over a decade before anyone else’s:  our very own Tuesday, September the 11^th!  I did not sleep well that weekend.  As anyone who has had loved ones lost because of their own September 11s can imagine, I was not sleeping very fucking well.

As bad?  One of the major other reasons that I had fired Mr. Jazzy Jinx had been because of one of the four, named agencies or persons he had submitted “on my behalf” –– of which one would be chosen by ‘the Court’ as the custody evaluator for Act Two!  That is, another to conduct a second – a second – custody evaluation!  I am saying that … Mr. Jinx actually “counseled” me that one of those submitted four should be the name of Ms. Carrie Canard, “Ya’ know, Legion.  So’s the judge, whoever that’ll be, can see that between the first trial and this one you’re not much concerned about it, ya’ know.  Like you’re confident that no matter who does it, things won’t change.  We’ll put her on last, and it really won’t matter ‘cause there’re the three others named on the list here, and “whoever” takes a look at this, … well, they won’t even know.  They’ll just pick the first one.  Trust me.” 

I could hardly believe him.  This “advice” certainly went wholly against my gut.  Buuuut at the time, he was my attorney, and … I – “agreed” to do – that which he said to do:  Childless Carrie Canard’s name went down onto the list!  And into ‘the Court’!  To daMan!

“A true mother’s personal witnesses such as her family and friends and spiritual advisors and teachers and coaches and the children’s other activities’ sponsors like their piano lesson teachers, even the family and individual therapists whom she chose for herself and the Boys, these people testifying at trial matter not at all, Mr. Jinx!”  And, especially for certain, those of this True mother’s.  I know this now.  All of their “evidences” … well, … they be fucked!

Indeed and of course, Jury, allya’all know, doncha’?  You can just tell what happened, can’t you?  O JYeah, Ms. Canard was again picked by daJudge … by “whoever” the mother – fuck he was.  And, again, she billed –– but for more hours, 15¾.  At $85 per each then, the total this go – round #2 of the Frumpy Mouse’s “industry” came to $1,338.75.  Plus the three Boys’ and my time, plus gasoline, plus telephone toll calls and parking fees in Des Moines, plus all of the other change – around summer arrangements from the 01^st through the 23^rd, the day before Zane’s 14^th birthday cake needed me to bake and decorate it this particular August. 

For more hours Ms. Canard charged this time because she had wanted now – and so did have – yet another interviewee.  Someone who really, really “knew” my sons and me well and had been a close, close part of our daily lives for a long, long time, of course?  Well … not! ! !  The other was none other than the Next Cunt in the Good and Wonderful Doctor’s Stash so in this, ‘my case’, that other was now called Ms. Fannie Issicran McLive.  As a matter of fact, Ms. McLive received a passel of Ms. Canard’s attentions including a couple of hours on Jesse’s very birthday day, the 15^th of August!   

I remember walking out of her office the very last time I ever heard from Ms. Carrie Canard on the 23^rd – except for that exact last time, that is, except for her testimony as (literally) mother – fucking “evidence” at September 1990’s Trial Two, “What will you do if you lose?”

“I shall appeal.”

“O!  I don’t think that’d be ‘in the boys’ interest’ at all, ya’ know, to put them through any more stress than you already have,” came Ms. Mousey Frump’s backlashing, fuckly fire right back at me.  Ms. Carrie Canard was actually ordering me not to act against what was her mother – fucking opinion nor against what was about to happen.  She already knew.  Before any study of hers, any reading and rereading, before any thinking through, Childless Canard already knew what she was going to do to me and to the Truemaier Boys and to write to ‘The Court’, … to daMan.  She had already decided that, of Jinx’s things that he’d assured me wouldn’t change, it was her so unlived opinion about my and my Kiddos’ lives that wasn’t going to change.  And not only had I lost in Canard’s so male – identified arena, it was soon to be equally known in ‘just’ whose other similarly identified, sexist arena I had already lost as well. 

Just?  Hardly.  Hardly justice.  Hence, my backsliding and the deal that deeper and deeper sleep was now mightily difficult to come by.   

Charmed so by Tonguey Herry, Ms. Cherry Canard pulled a truly fast one right off.  The very first sentence of her second, subsequent Report, addressing “some important changes in Dr. Edinsmaier’s life,” stated that Herry – Daddee was “now in a new mothering relationship for his children,” ! ! ! … the one that, for the time being at least, “makes him happy!” 

So, … in so many – of few – words:  of the old one, of the old relationship, of that of The First Family, of its happiness and health …  of all of that? All of that … be fucked!  

For the women unwilling to become one like himself, to become a consorting homeland terrorist like Dr. Herod Edinsmaier and such other violent abusers, these women are referred to the online resources of some friends of mine:  to Floridian and Attorney ms. liz’s web university of www.thelizlibrary.org, to Massachusetts researcher, author and commentator Ms. Trish’s site of www.florida-family-lawyers.com/trishwilson/interactivist.html,

to the infuriating www.cincinnatipas.com and to www.echidne-of-the-snakes.com for Truth’s rational, reasoned and balanced lessons on The Primary Parent, How Not to Become the Next One in His Stash, Who is The Mom – and Who So Ain’t?  Fake – Fuck and Pedophile – Sponsoring Richard Gardner and his Spurious “Parental Alienation Syndrome” Now Universally Foisted By America’s “Legal” System … But Only Upon DEhumans.  

But, most importantly for learning and understanding about the essence and being of –– about the status and condition of –– The First Family.  And Why Daddee, Why Patriarchy is Really Behind It All.  Behind It … HIS Mother – Fucking. 

Any willing women of Mehitable’s favorite “soft, servile and submissive” genre but unable to get their hands on her textbook could most certainly take their lessons in becoming male – identified females from either or both Ms. Canard and Ms. McLive.  Quite improved might be their lots, particularly monetarily as a matter of fact, if, while in their men’s lives before honing their courtesan skills, they first became thoroughly trained in the complete and utter dissing of the real and true mother of … The First Family. 

Ms. Canard, with none of her nor of Fannie Issicran McLive’s life experiences and educations whatsoever akin to ours, began her settled “facts” of the Truemaier Boys and of me to The Court at the very last of her Report.  She entitled it, also in capital letters with all other emphases including quotation marks hers and not mine, the “CONCERNS PRESENTED by the MOTHER and the CHILDREN” and only included in her vituperative account, a diatribe against me really, at least five direct references [count ‘em!] to anger.  Yet … the allegedly professional Ms. Canard gave absolutely no referencing whatsoever at all over to the veracity of “Dr. True’s primary concern.” 

Child custody – “evaluating,” childless Carrie Canard wrote thusly then, “Dr. True’s primary concern is that contact with Dr. Edinsmaier and Ms. McLive will jeopardize the boys’ ‘recovery’ from what she considers their codependent roles in their father’s ‘sex addiction’ and ‘romance intrigue addiction.’  She believes that her ex – husband, as a ‘sex addict’, is inherently untrustworthy in caring for their children.  She is most concerned about the boys, especially Zane, becoming like their father and engaging in behaviors that she feels are self – destructive.  Dr. True believes that Dr. Edinsmaier reinforces irresponsible behavior in the children.  In fact, she cited several examples of Dr. Edinsmaier’s behavior which she feels placed the children in jeopardy by exposing them to sexual addiction.  For example, she stated that Dr. Edinsmaier helped Zane order Playboy magazines in the past and has shown the boys materials that she considers pornographic. 

Dr. Edinsmaier has admitted to her that he fantasized about other women during their marriage.  Dr. True believes that Dr. Edinsmaier is an exhibitionist, walking in front of windows with the blinds open in the nude and wearing jeans with holes located in inappropriate places.

In addition, Dr. True is currently angry about the way she was treated by Dr. Edinsmaier during their marriage.  For example, she emphasized what she perceived as his lack of sensitivity in accommodating to her hearing impairment.  Dr. True is proud of the boys’ respectful and sensitive attention to this disability of hers. 

Dr. True is also angry because the boys were not informed in greater detail of their father’s plans to remarry, and she feels that Mirzah is often anxious because of uncertainty regarding his relationship with his father.  Dr. True believes that children should be informed at all stages of their parents’ relationships and that children’s feelings and opinions should be of utmost importance in considering whether or not an adult relationship continues.

Dr. True stated that she does not want Zane, Jesse, and Mirzah to adjust to their stepfamily situation because she views it as inappropriate and dysfunctional.  For example, she is concerned that the boys are not seeing a healthy husband and wife relationship modeled by their father and stepmother because she views Ms. McLive as ‘servile and submissive’ to Dr. Edinsmaier.  She also expressed concern about reports from the boys that their father shows favoritism to his stepdaughter. 

Dr. True is angry because her ex – husband has not paid for the family therapy in a timely fashion.  She also believes that he is trying to modify the current custody arrangement solely in order to avoid child support payments, which are currently $1,800 per month. 

Dr. True voiced grave concern about this examiner’s ability to assess the family situation from her perspective.  She was frustrated with her effects [her word … and not what it should have been:  ‘efforts’] to educate the public about addictions.

Zane, Jesse, and Mirzah voiced numerous complaints and concerns about their father, his new wife, and their new stepsister.  These points were presented by one or more of the boys during the interviews.  They believe that their father just wants custody in order to look good and doesn’t really want the boys.  Examples cited to support this point of view included his tendency to not pay for collect phone calls from the boys or for their family therapy with their mother.  Closely related are their resentments about the decrease in their father’s attention and time since his remarriage, hostile feelings toward Mary Jane, and anger at their father for not siding with them in arguments with Mary Jane.  Their anger toward their father since his remarriage seems to have increased the emotional distance from him and led to more open criticism of him, especially by the older boys.  In turn, they are frustrated with his lack of openness in responding to their questions and accusations.  They feel a lack of trust in their father for keeping their mail that they receive from their mother during visits.  Likewise, they perceive their father’s lack of trust in them that contributes to his evasiveness in answering their questions. 

They are also concerned about having to move and to switch school if their father gains primary physical care.  Each child stated that he does not want to move.

Zane, Jesse, and Mirzah feel that their mother needs them more than their father does and might be too depressed if they weren’t with her.  This sense of worry about the emotional well – being of the parent was not expressed about the boys’ father, only their mother.  They are also concerned that Dr. True would continue Court action if their father gained primary physical care, and the conflict between their parents would only escalate.

The boys expressed concern about losing some of their mother’s attention if she begins to date, as she has indicated.  They feel reassured that they will get to determine if her relationship with a man continues or not.  In general, Zane, Mirzah, and Jesse were concerned because they often feel that neither parent is listening or attending to their needs and desires, and they worry that the conflict between their parents will continue regardless of where they live or what they do.  They also worry about their own potential for developing addictions of various kinds.”

Zane and Jesse then stated to me they never told Ms. Carrie Canard that they were at all concerned about future litigation nor “continued Court action if their father gained primary physical care” but had insisted to her instead that, if he did get their physical custody, then … they wanted me to!  Likewise, Mirzah had said only to Ms. Canard that “Mama would be sad and do anything to get us back.” 

When Ms. Canard entered her “SUMMARY and RECOMMENDATIONS,” I just had to guffaw!  Could not help it!  “Ms. McLive was given the MMPI.  Her test results fall well within normal limits and present no concerns regarding her parenting abilities.”  What the fuck?!  What the fuck did Ms. Canard specifically know, let alone, know from the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, about Ms. McLive’s looooong, longstanding history of panic and anxiety attacks, her bouts by her own admission to me with “severe PMS,” her medical record of morbid and gross obesity – “310 pounds and more,” she herself had stated  – and how she was “managing” that by those carving – off – the – fat and stomach – stapling surgeries she’d undergone, her other innumerable physical health problems, her failure to reconcile with that older, adopted daughter of hers after a probable incestuous attack upon her own person or upon the daughter’s or upon the both of them – after that child, when shortly a legal adult, had married a man of massively questionable and abusive, thuggish repute.  A daughter whom none of my own sons had ever even met one time in person then.          Or, since.  Thankfully! 

 

Of all of the fucking –– UNtrue, UNprofessional –– things to write about this entirely fucked – up entity known as Ms. Fannie Issicran McLive, the Next Cunt in Herry’s Stash, “… results fall well within normal limits and present no concerns regarding her parenting abilities” had to be just the most … idiotic imaginable. 

 

I just could not stop laughing … this soon – to – be – Court – sanctioned idiocy grieved me so.

 

Ms. Canard continued, “Of grave concern is Dr. True’s vehement position that the honesty or trustworthiness of the children in interactions with their father is not important because he is ‘inherently untrustworthy’ because he is a ‘sex addict.’  This may give the boys the message that integrity is a situation – specific quality, one that can be discarded with ease in certain justified instances.  Dr. True holds the position that the boys should not adjust to the stepfamily situation because this implies acceptance of a dysfunctional lifestyle and places them at risk.  Her position overlooks an important developmental function which is to experience various types of social relationships [“ … even ones known to be abusive relationships?!” I query!], learn to function within them, and evaluate them based on one’s own personal experiences.  These boys need to have permission from their mother to decide how they feel about their stepmother and stepsisters [plural hers], as well as their father, without pressure from her.  Dr. True’s attempt to prevent the development of healthy relationships between the boys and their stepfamily may cause them to question their own perceptions of reality and foster guilt feelings.  Allowing such individuation is a difficult but essential step in promoting healthy identity development and social skills in children.

 

Dr. True emphasizes the need to understand concepts of codependency and sexual addiction in order to understand her family.  She seems convinced that any negative consequences the children are experiencing, such as feelings of distrust or anxiety, are due to their father.  Unfortunately, the intensity of distrust

among these family members has resulted in Dr. Edinsmaier and Ms. McLive violating important boundaries by reading the children’s mail from their mother.  This is done with the best of intentions; and while

Dr. Edinsmaier appears to have handled his distrustful feelings when questioned by the boys in a way that heightens their anxiety rather than reassures them, he has made attempts to improve his parenting skills and foster his relationships with Zane, Jesse, and Mirzah.  However, their resentment over his remarriage and conflicts with their stepsister have left the boys feeling that their relationship with their father has weakened, especially in recent months.  The move and space constraints for the boys in the new house fuel their dissatisfaction with their father and stepfamily.  Likewise, their mutual animosity towards Mary Jane has served to unite the brothers and to minimize their own differences and conflicts.”

 

“Evaluating” Canard actually finished her Report with this violent mother – deprivation mother – fuck, “The prognosis for a successful transition into the primary physical care of their father is more guarded at this time than perhaps at any time in the life of this family (my italics!).  However, based on the information gathered in this evaluation, such a move would be ‘in the best interest of these children.’  While there are indeed aspects of Dr. Edinsmaier’s behavior that must be addressed in his relationship with his sons and there will no doubt be intense conflict in the process of integrating the boys into the stepfamily routine, such a move would provide the children some much needed distance from their mother.” 

 

I say, “She and hers, anything hers including that friggin’ ‘primary concern’ of hers, be … mother – fucked!” 

 

Whatever makes Daddee, daMan, happy.  Daddy the Community Pillar, that daddee. 

 

“One option, rarely considered by this examiner, may be appropriate in this case.  If the Court becomes convinced that Dr. True is not likely to change her pattern of interactions with the children and believes that their well – being is jeopardized by continued exposure to her, then supervised visits with their mother are recommended.”

 

And for the precious sake of her, the American state government’s, Ms. McLive’s and Pillar Edinsmaier’s all perpetuating the violence of silence and secrecy against a True mother, Childless Canard concluded her aria in The Opera with The Grand Finale of all sentences, “Finally this examiner asks for the support of the Court to ensure that this report is not disclosed to extended family members or other unauthorized individuals.  Sincerely,” Signed __ Male – Identified Frumpy Mouse Canard __ .  JYeah, Riiiight.

 

Trial Two was open and shut … its result. 

 

Case closed.  Even before Ms. Carlotta Klutz, likewise liveried as when she had smiled before her Friday cameras but in appropriate black this week, had actually called the first person to witness in front of the same judge, Sol Wacotler Seizor, the one who had sequestered so effectively in that sanitarium for drunks his own first wife –– away from her own four babies.  I recall hoisting my corpse into the witness stand with orbits blackened from the running mascara, true, but also from the now complete absence for nights and nights of refreshing slumber. 

 

Even before opening my ‘witnessing’ mouth to give forth from it ‘evidence’, I saw in daMan’s facial countenance his already decided judgment as he lowered his eyes and looked away from me.  I raised a

tears –  smeared right hand to make the testimony affirmation of The Truth to … The Court.  His court,

that is.   It was Friday shortly after 1 pm, and he announced to the assembled which included in the gallery Ms. McLive on Herry’s side and about ten friends on mine that he, daJudge –– the same judge as in Trial One was this time … this second time around …not going to hear from and not going to listen to … my Boys. 

 

At all. 

 

Not a word whatsoever. 

 

I shot Grace our all – knowing, leveled glance between each other.  Her lower jaw dropped but just ever so slightly; then her whole head followed in its direction, her eyes never leaving mine.  Grace and Lionel did not need to bring the Truemaier Boys over to the courthouse from their respective schools.  Not a word from any one of My Three was daJudge going to listen to … in Act Two.  Judge Seizor didn’t need not only the Boys’ expressions and declarations and opinions although Jesse and Zane were 12 and 14, and Mirzah was about to turn 11 on the 28^th day of September, Judge Sol Wacotler Seizor wasn’t even going to –– and did not –– direct the court reporter –– even just one time –– to repeat back to him for his ‘concerted’ study and ‘thorough’ review from that stenographic machine’s multiple strips of hers … any of my words either.

 

*    *    *    *

 

A good, good job opened up in late August and I took a stab at it.  Monday through Friday, every weekend off, only daytime hours, no nights ever, great benefits, a wonderful vacation and sick leave policy, a county government position, completely suited to me as the detail person that I am, a great deal to demonstrate

to a district court judge as my trying to support my children yet still be very available to them all physically.  And at nearly $32,000 per annum in salary to start!

 

One catch.  Of course. –– I had to win the upcoming November 1990, midterm election for it.  The actual position? –– Recorder for Storm County, running against a Republican Party incumbent who not only had been 12 years in the post then already but is still there in it today 13 more years later and doing, now, the great job at it that she had always performed.  Over Labor Day weekend, the Boys and I even donned royal blue tees with my name in white lettering on them and waved my official cobalt blue and white yard signs

in the courthouse town’s Lincoln Days’ Parade.  We campaigned ourselves right down its main street, America’s actual federal Lincoln Highway, with cardboard bucket loads of wrapped hard candies to throw the eager youngsters!  Answered local reporters’ questions, had my picture taken and my platform for office, such as it was, published in the Ames Tribune and other publications around Storm County.  It would be a very good, very supporting deal for an intelligent mother of three children.  The recorders in Iowa, after all, even handled all of the counties’ hunting and fishing license records for the State, a factual detail that had not escaped either Zane, Jesse or me!

 

By Sunday, 16 September, I was on the phone at 5 in the morning, “I need Lionel to drive me to the hospital emergency room, Grace.  No, … none.  Not really.  Not since Thursday night, and even before I testified on Friday it wasn’t in solid chunks, ya’ know.  I don’t think I should risk driving there myself.  Dr. Narod won’t come out to the house and give me a shot; I called him at home.  He told me I had to come into the ER.  Just three days.  Good.  I’ve already waked up the Boys and told them.  No, no need to call László just now; please do so, though, later on this morning.  I’ll be waiting outside for Lionel then.  O, and Grace?  Thanks.  Thanks ever so much, Grace.” 

 

What I had told each child at his bedside was that this –– this –– was the way in which one should go about getting medicines legally and healthily –– when one needed drugs in order to fall asleep.  That one shouldn’t just slither on down to the goddamn street corner and score truly unknowns off of some dealer – hawker there.  “I’ll only be three days, I promise.  Lionel’s coming for me and Grace is coming over, too, until you wake up today.  Then she’ll take all of you over to their place, and she and Lionel’ll take good care of you for me.  I’ve left Grandpa and Grandma’s and Margaret’s numbers, too, on the kitchen table, Zane.  Take those with to Grace’s when you go – just in case you all or she needs them.  Now just go on back to sleep, Babe.”  Hug.  Hug.  Hug.  Kiss.  Kiss.  Kiss.  Times three.  “I’ll be back in three days.  By Wednesday for sure.”

 

“Three days and nights, Margaret.  That’s all I need.  The Boys are with my best friends, the Portias –– Grace and Lionel, from down here in The Teacup.  Tell Abraham and Adam before Meeting centers this morning.  Tell them both that I went just now for some help to sleep, would you please, Margaret?  No, we haven’t heard, not officially.  But I know.  I know.  Hell, you were there, too, Margaret.  You saw.  You heard what went on.”

 

“If I can do anything … O.  If, … if you were not hysterical, Legion, then … then is when I would be worried about you!  My god, Woman; he is taking your children!” I have never, never forgotten Margaret Sagely’s sorrow hurtling at me over the wires and through my telephone receiver. 

 

Times three.  I would never, never, never dismiss as nothing the suffering of a mother who, with one child lost, sits and sits and sits and rocks and rocks and rocks her way back up to the surface of this holocaustic cesspool, I would not.  I would not.  But with three lost?  Now that’s something.  Mirzah was exactly spot – on, “Mama would be so sad and do anything to get us back.”  I started to before I even knew for sure that I had lost them. 

 

Act Two Part Two.  “I can’t sleep.  There’s been a trial; it’s about my kids, and I just can’t sleep.  Umm,

I’d say it’s been, … O, a full night’s?  Well, probably three weeks or more.  It feels like I could sleep forever.  By the way, thanks a lot for that $50, Bob!  That was really generous.  The campaign?  O, so – so.  Kinda suspended for right now, I guess.   I just can’t get rid of the adrenal surges long enough to get to sleep. 

Let alone, for a long, long time.  Why is that, Doctor?”

 

“Experienced this before, Legion?”

 

“Yeah, once.  Long, long time ago.  Something bothers me a lot, Bob, I just don’t let go of it enough to fall asleep.  Ya’ know, soundly.  Like deep, deep.”

 

“Okay, well, Legion, I’m … I’m going to admit you since that’s what you want, right?”

 

“Well, no.  Actually.  No.  I’d like you to give me something in my own bed, so I could sleep there.  In my own bed.”

 

“Uh – uh, we just don’t do that anymore, Legion.  I’ll have to admit you for injections, and that’s really the only way that I can make sure you can have enough to actually get you the sleep that you need.  Here – fill this out; it’s for the best, don’t you agree?” 

 

I did not agree; but, obviously, … I had no choice. 

 

And I liked my doctor, Dr. Narod, a lot:  Bob and I had gone through the seventh and eighth grades together, and he was an obstetrician and gynecologist just like his own father before him.  He truly, truly liked women and respected us; so had his dad, now deceased.

 

Over my protestations, Lionel besought me to walk inside the hospital to the emergency room with me –– into Dr. Narod’s care, “Legion, it’s nothing.  Really.  I can just accompany you inside in case you need something, ya’ know.” 

 

But I had resolutely stood there beside Lionel in the parking lot of the hospital’s emergency room and told him that I had by that time bothered him and Grace quite enough with my needs and that he should return home to her.  “Besides,” I managed a sidewise smile, “you’ve got Mirzah, Jesse and Zane for the next three days, Bucko.  You’ve already done enough for me this morning, Lionel.  Thanks ever though!” 

 

And just exactly as I was soooo, so used to doing the things that simply needed doing –– that simply needed to get done –– when I was married to Dr. Herod Edinsmaier, I walked inside those hospital walls … alone. 

 

Biiiiiiig , big mistake! 

 

Cuz now?  Now, … I had no witness.     

 

In addition to all that Lionel had just done for me and, along with Grace, was about to do more, Lionel also could have been my much – needed witness to all of the events … which next transpired.  But how would      I know to even need one?!  How would I know to need a witness to go to the doctor, for chris’sake?! As it unfolded, it clearly became only my word, alone, against theirs of the hospital staff.  Again.  Big, big hoping and trusting fuckup of mine!  Again! 

 

We DEhumans are so addicted to both … dangerously –– even lethally –– addicted.  To both hope and trust.

 

Directly from that cubicle in the ER then, I was wheeled up to a place in the hospital called The Sixth Floor.  Its loftiest level, I could barely move, and it was now 6:30 am so with the employees’ change of shift, I could understand why no one was immediately attending to getting me a soporific injection and off into a bed for sleep.  But soon it was 7:30 am, and I still remained on the sofa in an anteroom next door to The Sixth Floor Nurses’ Station.  Still I sat.  And sat.  And sat.  And nobody came.  I just sat.  I could not read because my eyes would not focus; for over a week now Grace had been worried for me, worried about just that very aspect –– among so many, many others –– of my sleep deprivation. 

 

Finally then around 10 am a caucasian woman of ordinariness in a white coat sat directly in front of me on her own separate chair holding a clipboard with papers on it in one hand and a pen in the other.  She grilled –

in a kindly tone – yes; but hell, I had already answered all of these same friggin’ questions hours ago now down in the emergency room, hadn’t I?  I was left thinking, “Where’s the shot, for chris’sake?! And the bed?!  I need to crawl in a bed somewhere, get the medicine injected and get to sleep, don’t I?!  Back down in the ER that’d been the plan Dr. Narod and I had gone with as … ‘for the best,’ wasn’t it?  Where was Dr. Narod anyhow?, O yeah, the clock in the Nurses’ Station says it’s 10:30; he must be at his office.  Aaah, no … no – correction here,” I amended my soooo sleep – deprived mind, “it’s Sunday.  He’s left the building; he’s long gone away like all of those other I – don’t – work – weekends’ folks!”

 

Ordinary Worker Woman continued on and on and on.  I answered her questions the best that I could but, “Jeesh, cut me some slack here.”  Then she left. 

 

There were a lot of people it seemed just milling about back and forth … rather aimlessly.  And no one appeared particularly dressed for work I thought.   I again waited, expecting a bed and some help real, real soon.  “For sure, not?”  I thought, as a lot of pairs of eyes, too, were evidently aimed every now and then, kind of fleeting – like, in my direction.  “Don’t get paranoid, Legion,” I told myself.  “Wouldn’t Herry just love to see me paranoid about now!?  Whoooa, what a heyday he’d make out with that one to Ms. Canard!  To Judge Seizor!  He and Ms. Folie Fannie would have a hoot over that, wouldn’t they?” I remember musing to myself.

 

That same clock’s hands pointed to 3; it was 3 fucking pm!  Not only was it Sunday afternoon, now a full ten hours since I’d first telephoned Grace; but the workers’ shifts were changing yet again one more time!  And now double the pairs of eyes were sometimes affixed upon me on the couch –– still sitting in the anteroom right next to The Sixth Floor Nurses’ Station. 

 

Off of the stand beside the divan, I picked up that particular day’s usually thick morning newspaper and rolled it over into a baton, arose out of that sofa’s seat, strode on over to them all huddled up in their clutch of a shift – change “Report” and, in front of goddess and everyone else around, banged repeatedly my new witchy wand upon their clearly o – so shatterproof windowsill, “Get me some goddamn drugs and a bed! 

I hafta sleep, and I hafta sleep now, Dammit!  Now!  I wanna go to sleep.  You fucking hear me?!  I. Want. To. Go. To. Sleep!  Get me a bed!  Geeeet meeeeee a gawddaaaaaamn bed! ! !” 

 

O  O  O, four of ‘em!  And I mean yesterday!  They were – all four of ‘em – on me like yesterday!  Four men. 

 

All in white, head to toe, except for their trouser belts.  Even their tennis shoes.  I soooo had me the drugs and the bed!  Well, had them … sort of, shall I say. 

 

Two on my upper body and torso with my breasts and left cheek crushing into the bare mattress flung once upon a time … before me … onto the equally bare floor and one fellow squarely squatted on top of both of my thighs, his buttocksy behind covering all of mine nearly.  Except for Manly Man #4 yanking down my underpants and jabbing the hypodermic full throttle into that particular left cheek.  Lights … soooo, so out! 

 

I slept.

 

Fuck knows what I looked like those three days.  Those … three slumbering days!  Because I certainly don’t know what I looked like.  I awakened.  The doctor’s chart note, the one that I myself and a whole passel of other people would later read as well, described me simply as … “a changed individual.” 

 

Well, I’ll say!  “Sleep’s good.  Sleep’ll do that for ya’!”  And a whole lot of it can, when one’s had almost none of it, well, … change you.  Ask any military torturer or terrorist.  Or, as a matter of fact, the victims so tortured!  Ask them.  Or, for further ‘evidence’, ask any celebrity or sports figure on tour or on the road who collapses and drops from exhaustion and needs a few days in the clink or off somewhere at a secluded yet glitzy, mountain – air spa for some badly needed rest.  Ask all of those folks about whom we read in the Sunday celeb and sports sections nearly every week!  There were probably even such stories in the caduceus which I had spontaneously sculpted out of that specific daily’s chunky, rolled – over newspaper!

 

I was no longer inside the rubber room either.  Someone, and most likely those particular, peculiar four men, had carried me into a regular hospital bed in a regular room.  Or so it seemed.  And the door was not locked.    Not that door, the bedroom’s door.  The ones, however, that led out and off of The Sixth Floor altogether?  Now those three, stacked doors, one right after the previous and parallel other one, they all were locked. 

I, of course, was in the goddamn, mother - fucking psych ward, and I now knew it, too.  Come to find out –– a lot later, of course –– that had I not pitched my successful albeit witchy hissy – fit, it would’ve been even more hours that I would have been left there on that sofa to languish and rot. 

 

And I was being watched.  All along when I’d thought I was being watched?  I had not been … ‘paranoid’. Indeed, I was being surveilled.  Was I ever!  For signs and symptoms of illicit drug ingestion or whatever the hell allya’all call it when one snorts, shoots up, stashes stuff inside their vagina or rectum or otherwise takes street shit inside themselves.  Also for alcohol.  Poisoning?  Abuse?  Hell, I didn’t know.  I didn’t even drink much, one or two glasses of wine a month – if I were lucky enough to be able to go out for Italian.  Ya’ know, like with a spaghetti dinner!  For my own personal drinking purposes, well, we certainly could not afford! for me to purchase any booze to just have it on hand!  There hadn’t been a bottle or a can of anything liquor – like in the house for nearly two years or more!  Hardly a drop even of soda pop, as a matter of fact. 

 

Just as I had explained to Mirzah, Jesse and Zane at their bedsides, immediately before Lionel’s chauffeuring me to the ER’s entry, never to do –– never to go buy a dope dealer’s crud for one’s problems –– I had been, myself, observed for these very abuses.  I was blown away.  Then, again, I had had no witness, let alone, one to vouch for me and for my ‘everyday’ conduct:  gracious and generous and offering Lionel had not come inside with me.

 

I went to the same window glass of the Nurses’ Station and asked to see Dr. Narod.  “Well, he’s not here, and, anyhow, he’s not your doctor.”

 

“What?”

 

“I saaaaid he is noooot here and, anyhoooow, he is nooooot your doctor,” the worker intoned, ridiculing me.

 

“O?”

 

“O whaaaaat?  You’re in the psych ward, Sweetie, you’re not having a baby, for goodness’ sake!  Oooooor,

are you?!”  Roar, roar, roar.  The three of them gathered there split out into guffaws at Ward Clerk Blatherer’s off – the – cuff mockery of me.

 

“I want to see Dr. Narod.”

 

“Uh – uh.  That idn’t gonna happen.”

 

“What?  I need to see Dr. Narod.”

 

“I saaaaid NO!  That is not going to happen, Legion True!  Er, eeeh – scuuuuse me: … Doooooctor Legion Truuuuue! … it says here on your chart, dudn’t it?”  He turned and smirked at the other two also sniggering through my title and my last name.  Snidely First Blatherer finished, “I’ll tell your doctor you wanna see her, but you will not be seeing Dr. Narod.  Dr. Bassenthwaite’s your doctor now, and she’s busy with office hours.  She’ll probably stop by later –– after 5 or somethin’.”

 

So unknowingly slogged I, after those three terrific soporific nights and days, into … another entire fortnight! at the SpaChezResort Hotel Sixth Floor.  Dr. Bassenthwaite did come around that evening, a person whom      I liked right off.  She informed me that she’d had a call from some attorney who was representing me.

 

“O, Ms. Klutz?  You’ve heard from Ms. Klutz?!” 

 

“Well, yes, I have; but that’s not the lawyer I’m talking about now.”

 

“Ah, um, with Ms. Klutz.  With Ms. Klutz, Doctor, what did she say?  Has the order come down?  Is it back?  Did she say?”

 

“She didn’t.  No.  She called, in fact, to say that it wasn’t back yet actually.”

 

“What?  O.  O.  I see.  Jeesh.  Umm.” I was despondent but not wanting to show the doctor this face, of course.  I mean I liked her, but I didn’t know her like I knew Bob Narod so how could I trust her?  “What’d you say?” I remembered now, something about some other lawyer.

 

“Did you sleep well, Legion?  You seemed to.  Did you, do you think?” Dr. Bassenthwaite eluded, evaded.    I did not like this.  “Do you know what day this is?”

 

“Well, yeah!  I’ll say!  I loved it.  It was great.  I feel great.  That’s just what I needed.  It is what I came to see Dr. Narod for in the first place.  And, ah, … yeah, as a matter of fact, I do know the day:  it’s Wednesday.  Wednesday, the 19^th.”

 

“Um – hmm.  It is,” the doctor nodded nicely, her tone rather a bit syrupy I reckoned. 

 

“So, Doctor Bassenthwaite.  My kids, I haven’t talked to them yet.  But I won’t really need to make but one telephone call.  They’re with friends, and the husband’ll come get me tonight so can I go do that now then?”

 

“Ah, no, I don’t believe he will be coming for you tonight.”

 

“O Yes!  Yes, he will.  He promised.  Anything I need he and Grace, his wife?  They’ll do it.  Lionel will come.”

 

“Ah, … noooo, he won’t.”  Evasion, elusion. 

 

“What the fuck is she saying?  What the fuck is going on here?” I pondered and purposefully maneuvered my hearing ear, my right ear, closer to this doctor’s lip direction, “What do you mean?”

 

“A man named Mr. Zaffar telephoned me this afternoon.  He is now your attorney, too.”

 

“No, he isn’t.  He most certainly is not.  I know Mr. Zaffar, and he’s cool.  He’s all right, but he is not my lawyer.  What are you talking about?!  Why’d he call you anyhow?!  What is somebody I have not hired talking to my doctor for, a doctor by the way whom I haven’t even hired –– either!” I was getting righteously pissed –– to say the fucking least!

 

Come to find out, ‘the Court’ had appointed an attorney for me.  Mr. Dario Zaffar.  That’d be the same

‘the Court’ of Storm County, of course.  And the same Mr. Dario Zaffar whom I had known for a long, long time from party politics and from high school, as a matter of fact, a tall, dark drink of water whom, for what

I knew of him through those long – ago channels, I liked.  For a lawyer anyhow, no shyster he.  That I knew of.  And I liked his wife, a biology technician at the University.  She and he had had three little ones, bang, bang and bang, too.  “Whatever the hell for?” 

 

Dr. Bassenthwaite so unsuccessfully struggled to maintain eye contact, “Well, ah … there’s been an emergency hearing and a’, um …, you’re going to be getting a visit from Sheriff Stout later on this evening.  And ah, um, … an’ Mr. Zaffar, um, ah, on your behalf, well, ah, he’ll be accompanying the sheriff here …, ah, … here to The Sixth Floor.”

 

“What the …, ‘an emergency hearing’, you say?!  Wha’ … Whatever are you talking about?  I think you’d better tell me straight up now, Dr Bassenthwaite.  Now what do you mean just exactly here?  And why the hell do you know all of this anyhow and I don’t even know any of it yet?  Why is that exactly, huh?  Why?! … an emergency hearing?  Why?  What the hell is that all about?” I feigned dumbfoundedness as I surmised was expected of me.  But –– in that very instant – I knew.  I knew what an ‘emergency hearing’ meant.  I so knew just exactly what was going on!

 

Come to find out, quite a mother – fucking bit had been going on out those Sixth Floor triplet doors of this locked – up – tighter – than – a – drum Hotel during all of those nights and days of mine off in sweet, sweet somnolence.  It’s an ol’, ol’ story though; and most folks already know of it, we DEhumans, very, very many

of us, having already lived it ourselves. 

 

And I certainly did know it, too, now –– almost at that specific, earlier bolt – like slug of hers:  Back there at Dr. Bassenthwaite’s exhortation of, “No, he won’t… ,” … meaning, the ‘good’ doctor had been, that Lionel Portia would not be coming for me – –  

 

– –  buuuut … that the Manly Man White Coats would be.  If.  If.

 

Hadn’t taken much convincing to daJudge, to daMan who himself had removed his own daughters’ mother remotely from those girls’ residential vicinity, for Herry to sway this man and get an invocation in to him for a real bit of Southern – applied, maternal – deprivation aprovechar here, “Just let me see here how much further I can fuck her over!  To take advantage of and to swindle the shit out of this situation of hers!  The Cunt’s sleep – deprived and utterly exhausted, O JYeah!  Judge Seizor already’s seen her crying; he’s seen her blubbering.  Now she’s in this joint.  Not a prison but no clinic clink either.  Hey, get the Twat sent up the river for good I can.  With Scheisser’s maneuvering, we can get this done – and no one’s the wiser!  Certainly not Zane, Jesse and Mirzah!  Cheap, too!  Won’t even cost me!  It’ll all be ‘on the county!’  Hey, go for it, Shindy!  Get her!  Unstable.  Unfit.  Crazy.  Loony Tunes.  Get her!  Gut her!  Gut the goddamn Bitch right in her friggin’ belly!  Get her put away.  The Cunt won’t be dead – but shit!  That –– permanent maternal – deprivation from her sons –– that’ll do it.  That’ll be just as good as dead!  Work it, Baby!  Work it!  What’s that cadence again now, ya’ know, the one we in the military all march so well to, ‘You can take a woman, Cut the bitch in two; I can fuck the lower half and give the upper half to you!’  Yeeaah!  Work it, Scheisser!”

 

Same ol’ control, dominion and domination fuckover of the DEhuman as that of the last 12 or so millennia ...

 

Certainly enough:  Sheriff Stout and Mr. Zaffar did –– together –– appear.  On The Sixth Floor.  With papers. 

 

Two more weeks in this very palace at the least or?  Or … I was to be placed smack – dab on the fast track to Cherokee.  The very next day. 

 

That would be Cherokee State Mental Hospital hidden from the public’s cognizance in the far upper northwest quadrant of the state, at least a full and contorted three hours’ – plus drive away from Ames. 

There –– to be hauled, locked away and, most certainly, to forever be forgotten all about! –– cuz it was obvious to every man, to all pillared men for sure, wasn’t it?  i) Legion True was nothin’ if not wholly rode hard and put up wet.  ii) She –– that Whore –– deserved this.

 

A place –– Cherokee –– about which I had often, often heard ever since I first was a rebel teen and had also  at such rebellious times been threatened with incarceration there by some not – so – witty persons of Mehitable’s acquaintance, “O, once inside, Sweetie, you don’t see the light of day again!  And your family, Girl?  Ha!  That’s the last they’ve seen of you, too!”  That is what I had known of Cherokee.  For just years and years and years.

 

“Sign ‘em.  You’ll wanna be signin’ ‘em,” the lawman as rotund as his name proclaimed. 

 

Looming from around the obese sheriff’s backside at about 6’6”, Mr. Dario Zaffar was quietly nodding, too, and trying unsuccessfully to smile.  “At least another two weeks, Legion.  That’s what the doctor’s saying.  Please.  You’d better sign.  It could get bad if you don’t.  Real bad.  It’s nice to see you again, by the way, Legion.”  At least Mr. Zaffar, unlike the fat fuck of a “peace” officer in front of him, not only could look straight into my eyes but also actually address me by my first name!  Twice!

 

I did.  I signed.  That was Wednesday evening, 19 September 1990:  the “Wednesday” of exactly when I had promised to all three of my Boys that I would be home to them again.  Instead, of course, AmTaham and Mehitable were called and motored right up to take the Truemaier grandsons back over from Grace and Lionel’s to Havencourt where Mehitable, for the second time in my adult life, immediately proceeded to

set about rearranging our entire home –– starting, of course again, with my kitchen drawers’ compositions.  I’ve never known for sure how it was that Mehitable already knew, when telephoned to please come up, that  I was not around the condo and the Boys that week, whether it was from Zane or Jesse or Mirzah –– or from Herry and Fannie Issicran McLive.  But she did.  She knew. 

 

Dr. Bassenthwaite assured me over and over as did Dr. Narod the couple of times in that 15 days’ stint –– “hospitalized away” –– when he actually did visit me on The Sixth Floor, too, that this information had not gotten to Mehitable from them nor from any of the hospital personnel.  Staff had had strict orders from the doctors and from me not to speak to her.  And its workers had not the doctors pledged to me.  Anyway, it was (alleged … ) to be the hospital’s and its medical records’ departmental policy.  At 42½, I was a friggin’ adult after all, and they (again allegedly … ) could not release information to anyone – simply by that fact alone.  Indeed, one of the nurses in a chart note –– a copy of all of which for my own ‘research’ in preparation to later be able to rebut Mr. Shindy Scheisser in ‘the Court’ I eventually had had to buy for myself … 20  bucks! …  –– described just even Mehitable’s conversational mannerisms to the ward’s staff members when she telephoned them, which they told me she frequently did do, as … “dithering.”

 

How the fuck had I ended up on The Sixth Floor ward in the first goddamn place?!  From Dr. Narod, my ‘good, good man – doctor – pillar’!  “It feels like I could sleep forever.”  That’s how!  Dr. Narod had written on the hospital’s admission note beside that quotation, the one back down in the emergency room which had been my bleary – eyed, lids – at – half – mast answer to his query of how I felt, “Legion expresses suicidal ideation!” … something I never, ever had stated!

 

But.  But I?!  I, a mere DEhuman – girlchil’ – peon?  A looooong, long – time adult though I so be?!                   I … had had no witness!  “No,” I had told Lionel before walking inside alone, “I can do this all by myself.  But thanks ever so much anyhow, Lionel.” 

 

“What the fuck!?  Suicide?  That is friggin’ puissant, Dr. Narod!  What a stupid thing, what a contrived,      arrogant and so – male assumption! for you to have gone and written down?!!  Why the fuck had I had Lionel drive me in to the ER if I didn’t care about living or dying?  Or, better yet, if I’d really wanted to kill myself, then I should bloody well have driven myself to the hospital’s emergency room; I could’ve maybe killed a few other people in the process and taken them on down out of their frickin’ miseries, too, for chris’sake!” 

 

For someone whom I had trusted for quite some time, the $50 that Dr. Narod had contributed to my short – lived political campaign was – now – peanuts.  Why, it took me, at 15 frigging dollars a month and never more than that, until the end of 1998, to retire the entire amount of that hospital bill balance!  The county pay?  As Herry had likely fantasized?!  The county pay for this forced and unjustified incarceration, this jailing?!  Fuck, the county didn’t pay; I had had to!  I had had to sign away two mother – fucking weeks of my life! –– as well as to pay these bullyingly entitled mother – fuckers to take it from me, too!  And suffer threat and fear of the Cherokee life imprisonment and, therefore, loss of everything including my very physical freedom besides.      I was to lose all of my rights –– including the one to parent my own Children.  How was this at all U.S. Constitutional?!!!  Herry was behind this.  His mark was all over it.   As Andrea Dworkin buttresses about documents not working if they aren’t, as well, working for women, “How was this at all constitutional?!!!”

 

The medical employees were under siege, too, some said.  Because of lawsuits as well.  The hospital and the psychiatric ward’s specific staffers including both its nurses and the doctors.  If they had given me something for sleep right away that first Sunday morning early and I had been drinking alcohol or had had something else in my system –– and all of that together had interacted badly, even fatally, –– why, then the hospital might have been liable.  Or, that had been the story that one of the nurses there told me much, much later.  She also had children at Kate Mitchell School and lived in our neighborhood known affectionately by us, its residents, as The Teacup.  That made sense to me, a doctor myself; but, fuck, 10 more hours than necessary! without something to finally help me sleep?!  Then when I, at last, had had to get a little loud with the personnel, why, they all flew into routine drill mode for a possibly violent combatant gone mental on them!!!  O, had they ever!   

 

If I’d only taken Lionel Portia inside with me like he had wanted to go.  If only. 

 

With Pillared, Privileged Herry in the pathology business and himself on this hospital’s very medical staff, he definitely had obtained private information about me as a physician that he was nowhere, no way –– never –– entitled to know, to have –– or to (ab)use –– as an ex – husband, as a person, as the other, opposing ‘parent’ embattled with me, a client there, for my Children’s very custody. 

 

Indeed, those of Dr. Elitist Edinsmaier’s Leader – of – the – Community marks were all over this one.  It was no stretch, either, to further imagine Ms. Fannie Issicran nodding her balding bobblehead as she stood, er, as she soooo plopped that unctuous, male – identified McLive carcass of hers fully down beside her man! 

 

A couple of cool, cool things did happen in the joint, inside the SpaChezResort Hotel Sixth Floor.  In addition to the wonderfully refreshening sleep.  Friends from out of the woodwork called so much that by the end of the first week, my telephone “privileges” had been severely limited by the staff.  Abraham and László took me on long, long around – the – block walks; that is, the second week there we daily went round and round the hospital complex’s gardens, courtyard and grounds as long as I was “allowed” outside.  From The Teacup nurse I obtained the name of the Reverend Mr. Keith Log, a therapist she said truly, truly knew pain and suffering –– and survival. 

 

Come to find out, Mr. Log was about my age, had been at one time an ordained Mennonite minister married 26 years to Rhonda with whom he’d raised up three birthed children to all of their adulthoods before explaining to her that he, with the help of a lot of people among whom he counted both his mother and father, was exiting the closet … finally.  Their (legal and religious) marriage formally ended, of course.  Their friendship and bonds, after three or four more fairly rocky, and even somewhat explosive, subsequent years, did not.  From very shortly after the time when I myself exited that most closeted mental establishment on Monday morning, 01 October 1990, to this, Keith remains for me and for hundreds in town not only a lifeline ministering wherever he is needed but also a true part of my estate … my friend.   

 

But, two things were not cool.  In no way.  Soooo, so … not cool. 

 

The drugs.  Om’gaaawd! the drugs.  I ballooned by the end of the drug – taking, Herry – Daddee’s drugging of me, over two years later … 47 pounds up … which until this current 21^st Century, never, ever came off!  For over a decade there occurred my carrying around this fat that I, too, had actually paid them all biiiig dollars –– to do to me!  Herry –– fuckingly controlling from behind his self – and judge – anointing as an elitist community pillar and from the safety of his smarmy frontage as an unguentary physician in the area stomped his toe tips down onto my bathroom scale every single time –– which was so damned often I lost count –– that I begged the court – appointed outpatient psychiatrist, Dr. Singh, to altogether quit with the lithium and the haloperidol and the chlorpromazine and the imipramine.  Just leave me the hell alone with

an itty bitty, wee amount of the friggin’ flurazepam, 15 mg a night for awhile; that was all I needed.  And I,

a doctor my own self after all –– but a Not Male one, of course! –– knew it, too. 

 

But no.   

 

A court document, an estoppel of some sort, would appear ordering me to remain doped.  To remain fucked. 

 

Barred, Herry did with that court – order paper of his, my freedom FROM drugging.  I –– and many, many others –– call the dance I boogied  … the Haldol Shuffle.  Inside the shell that was the thing in the room who was me, I continued entirely lucid and solidly knew just exactly how mother – fuckingly ridiculous I looked outwardly to all who saw me literally pour on the pounds or try to stop the stiffened amble or my rock – hard, stony and stoned, frozen face.  I could not smile but that I looked like my mumbling jaws would shatter if      I did try to.  And my vision?  I still could not read, and Grace –– as, indeed, was I –– remained yet so troubled about that for me.  The words were not only fuzzy, but they also jumped all over their freaking paragraphs.  That was the worst of it for me; Grace worried, “How will you get through your day, Legion, if you cannot read?!  How?!”

 

What is as murdering is that Herry so very well knew, too, the loathsome, renditioning side effects of all of this deadening junk – fuck.  If Torturer and Executioner Herod Edinsmaier in his chief role in The Opera could not slay me himself and, most importantly here, at the same time retain all of his glory and money and

if I would not seem to go dead by way of my own hand –– which, of course, had not yet happened, –– well then, fuck, all of this toxic chemical shit just might kill her!  From the PDR which any of us all know is the Physician’s Desk Reference:  “Overdose may cause cardiac rhythm disturbance, stupor, coma and death.  May result in heart block, hypertension and postural hypotension.  Also may cause coma, seizures, hallucinations, delusions and tremor.”  That was just for imipramine – and for that evil haloperidol as well as with chlorpromazine alone?  Try possibly irreversible!  Including like irreversibly dead!  Whoa!  “Potentially irreversible, involuntary movements of the face, hands and trunk (tardive dyskinesia), increased heart rate, low blood pressure and  EKG changes.  Cases of sudden and unexpected death have been reported.  May also cause high fevers,  muscle rigidity, altered mental states and instability of blood pressure and pulse; potentially fatal (neuroleptic malignant syndrome).”  Fuck!  I was fucked –– soooo fucked –– and did I ever know it, too!

 

The second heinous –– and utterly preventable –– wicked thing?  Tuesday evening, 25 September 1990,     12 – year – old Jesse found a newspaper, the Ames Tribune, on our Havencourt stoop and opened it up before taking it inside to his Grandpa AmTaham.  I was subscribing because of the campaign –– now most postponed at that present time, of course.  There, with my headshot image and headlines scrawled and screaming across the top of its very front page, was the story of a woman deemed mental and crazed by Judge Sol Wacotler Seizor thinking she was still in the electoral running for recorder of this, the Ames community’s Storm County!  A storm ensued all right.  Dear, dear Jesse, then AmTaham, then Zane and Mirzah and, of course Mehitable too, all knew –– for the first time right then and there … their “unofficial” notice, that is –– they all knew of the outcome of Act Two:  a custody – decisioning decree the article stated which Judge Seizor had signed the Friday previously, the 21^st, and that had then appeared in court records as official just the day before this newspaper’s edition, that is, the decreed decision was official on Monday … 24 September 1990.

 

The article’s author was a person then named Abbey Gaffey, about 25 or so.  By the time I was released and on the way home from the hospital by way of a really rarely stunned AmTaham on 01 October, Ms. Gaffey was, also a Monday one week hence, cleaning out her desk at the Trib and told to be gone from the building before her editor returned.  This boss man’s act was the Tribune’s version of an appeasement bone thrown to the Ames area masses.  A sacrificed, virginally configured, DEhuman youth Ms. Gaffey was … whom her boss man actually had the mother – fucking insolence to term out loud … “an unbridled reporter.”  Traumatizing Jesse?  Me?  Mirzah or Zane?  Ms. Gaffey?  What the patriarchal fuck had Pillared Media Man cared? 

 

A reporter Friend of mine, whom I shall not name outright for obvious clandestine reasons, called me at the hospital to tell me that he personally had witnessed this editor’s tyrannical abettors’ and cohorts’ deed in the bloodbath that maneuvered my and my Boys’ published undoing, “No!”

 

“JYeah.  Yea – aaaah,” Friend declared.

 

“O my fucking god, Friend!”

 

“Ya’ know, Legion ... as much as you believe that your case is important and as much as it so is to you and to your boys, of course, it really isn’t to a newspaper.  Nobody here went lookin’ for this.  We never do.”

 

“Wha’?  What are you saying?!”  Head – bangingly true my Friend had been:  I did think ‘my case,’ my struggles, my passions fantastically important.  That I so did. 

 

“Well, it’s a divorce, Legion.  A divorce.  People get frickin’ divorced every single day everywhere.  And nobody prints a thing about it.  And we don’t either.  Not even the ones with kids.  Everybody’s also got kids, Legion, and o’course, a divorce is a lotta times, probably most times, gonna involve kids.  It just isn’t news.  And we soooo don’t go lookin’ for it.  Nobody from here went over to the courthouse to get the daily rap sheet or whatever the fuck custody records are called.  We don’t have to; there’s plenty of other stuff to report on and print.”

 

“Then … then?”

 

“Yeah, that’s what I’m coming to.  The newspaper got the goods on you cuz of yer ex – husband.”

 

“Yeah, well, that doesn’t surprise me.  But, what?  Meaning what?  What about Herry and this printed fuck?”

 

“Seems Edinsmaier had his attorney fax us the Court’s order,” Friend stated about the multiple pages of Sol Wacotler Seizor’s 24 September 1990 Mother – Fucking.

 

“Whaaa – at?”

 

“Yeah.  Yesterday, no, … no, Monday morning.  Right after it must’ve reached his lawyer’s office in

Des Moines apparently.  Ya’ know, in Scheisser’s morning’s mail there.  Well, it spilled out all over our newsroom floor cuz there were so many pages to it all.  And ‘fore anyone noticed what was on the fax machine, why, the air conditioner was blowin’ ‘em all over.”

 

“Om’god.  And then?”

 

“Yeah well, somebody gathered ‘em all together and read out loud who it was about –– you.  An’ we all knew you were running.  Ya’ know, runnin’ for county recorder.  That guy took it over to the editor.  That was about 11 yesterday, an’ Abbey?  Well, Abbey didn’t right then have an assignment so he put her on it.  She’d already met deadline, and she was freed up; that’s why the editor put it on to her.”

 

“Jeesh!  All of them?  All of the pages?”

 

“O JYeah.  Thaaa – at was the worst, Legion.  Everybody in the newsroom was snickerin’.  Well, you’ve read it, haven’t ya’?  It soooo sucks.  It just kills you.  I mean:  it just kills you!  You have read it, … right, Legion?!”

 

“Well, actually no, Friend.  I haven’t.  I know about what it says though.  Sort of.  But I can’t read.  All of the goddamn dope –– and I can barely keep food down for that matter.  Ever since Carlotta was here last night.  She brought in to me both the decree and the newspaper.”  Those two items she had had all right.  Acting the evening before in her two pieces of lace – fringed ivory Escada Couture like she was such the concerned friend – o’ – mine driving her tiny, teal – tinged attorney ass all the way up from Des Moines “to serve” me in The Sixth Floor Hotel what amounted to just another helping of mother – fucking.  This from the person who did not even know ‘my case’ –– from its first minute inside Act Two Part Two, the person who didn’t even have the witnesses straight, let alone, the facts.  Nor all of its facts.  Let alone, any of the ones that she had managed to have at her very fingertips –– aside from their being anywhere near the tip of her friggin’ tongue. 

 

So head – bangingly true it was.  Only I had known ‘my case’ like ‘my case’ had needed to be known ––

yet I could not shepherd it, let alone, … present it.

 

The guts of Judge Sol Wacotler Seizor’s Trial Two decree signed 21 September 1990, amounted to the fact that even though he acknowledged that I had “not significantly restricted Herry’s specified visitation,” [There had, Jury, in reality?  There had been noooo restriction in “Herry’s specified visitation” ever at all! ! !]  not only were all three Boys to be handed over to the Good and Wonderful Dr. Herod Edinsmaier on Saturday, the 13^th of October, at 11:30 in the morning with the directive specifically to this man that he “should not destroy the love and attachment they have for their mother;” but daJudge also gave a similarly countenanced community pillar, daDoctor, the now court – ordered patriarchal power to reign over and to rein in … me!  That is to say, the fact that Herry, daMan and the daddee, was also a fine, leadership hoo – hah,     a physician at that, this now meant that The Court in the form of The High Aggrandizier was stepping aside and aggrandizing The Androcentric Good Doctor instead.  Judge Seizor had just supplanted himself with Dominion – Colonizing Herry –– and ordered Dr. Edinsmaier to literally take over all legal control of the Truemaier Boys and of me –– for as much and for as long as King Herod wanted this reign and these reins! 

 

No matter that Herry Edinsmaier was also … my ex – husband.  No.  No matter that small thing. 

 

“Legion may have visitation provided she has furnished to Herry a signed statement requesting visitation, stating that during the periods of visitation she will refrain from any negative comments to or about Herry, his spouse, and her children in the presence of the boys, and that she is undergoing and will continue to undergo counseling to help her achieve a harmonious relationship.”  Next page The High Aggrandizier rubber – stamped King Herod’s reign of terror in this folie à deux of his with Herry, “If it becomes apparent to Herry that Legion is continuing to engage in the same practices that blah, blah, blah …” 

 

Hmmm, just precisely how, in specific outline and detail, was that order of Judge Seizor’s “apparent to Herry?”  O, but he waaas … the Androcentric Good Doctor, Dr. Edinsmaier was.  So, in countenance and demeanor then by the fact that Herry was i) a man and ii) a medical doctor, then he looked quite a passel like the flowingly intelligent, black – caped magistrate himself, the High Aggrandizier.  Likewise then, was Herod not also most able by so appearing as clever and gifted, especially to all in the community, to have all matters of the children and their custody, his own children, become “apparent” to him?  As well as, of course, with the aggrandizing of Dr. Herod Edinsmaier through then his maleness, his superior medical knowledge and his training, why daMan also known as the ex – husband and the daddee would also be “objective,” capable and skilled in the discernment of the law like a judge would be, would he not, in setting down the detailed guidelines into what Judge Sol Wacotler Seizor literally decreed was to be “a program of mental therapy” for the childlike subject, Legion True, to follow and to adhere to and for himself, King Herod, to design and, then subsequently –– if pleased and satisfied … enough … as to the child’s performance thereof, to sign off on! 

 

Just like, by way of Herry’s long and circuitously stretchy digits, King Herod had already been symphonizing and conducting from behind The Opera’s scenes … with “the papers” and with “sending” Sheriff Stout and Attorney Zaffar and with all of those psychotropic drugs and the threat to me of Cherokee State Mental Hospital … thus far.  Just like the Ames Trib saga which was unfolding before me, Part Three now had Herry behind it, too!

 

The folie à deux from the High Aggrandizier continued, “Joint custody should be terminated and sole custody be placed with Herry.  Payment of child support to Legion should be terminated after payment of the October 01, 1990 payment.  Herry has the right to make application to require her to contribute to the support of the children or share in the uninsured medical expenses.  He is to advise her by letter that it is his intention to terminate visitation if her practice continues.  He has the right to deny visitation.”   

 

Herry could devise a program of mental therapy that I needed to follow and about which he, The Good Doctor Edinsmaier himself, granted by way of the folie à deux with The High Aggrandizier, that is, this authority now conveyed upon him by ‘the Court,’ would decide was either enough or it wasn’t.  Herry could now wield the power to mother – fuckingly decide the construct and structure of such a program all by himself, to have me, his ex – wife – yet – nonetheless – “child,” submissively succumb to it and to complete it successfully to his satisfaction alone, before he, Herry, would even have to consider affixing his signature to something that bestowed back upon me – perhaps – a “chance” to have contact with any one of  my very own children again!  Unfuckingbelievable!  I mean:  THINK on that!  Unbelievable mother – fuck!

 

No matter that Dr. Edinsmaier was a sex addict and had repeatedly sexually and physically abused his sons.  And me. 

 

“If her practice continues …”  Of not turning a blind eye any longer, that practice of hers?  No, Judge Seizor, Your High Aggrandizier, no matter that small thing.  No matter that Judge Seizor also wrote that with me, “The boys continue to do well except that Zane has been involved in consuming beer, smoking and he is not achieving his educational potential.  Each of the parties suggests that that’s due to the action of the other one.”  No matter that they already were doing, all three of them in fact, truly quite, quite well!  With me!

 

Judge Seizor, the High Aggrandizier, had just given a fairly smart American man not only as legal chattel the very children whom I alone chose to grow –– AND . AND . AND . CHOSE TO NOT ABORT –– but also complete legal control, dominion and all – encompassing power over me, that man’s ex – wife.  Take my children, then ya’ take me and all that is mine, too.  Ya’ take her children, then you take and murder all that is of her soul and of her freedom, all that is of any real importance to any true mother whom I know … anywhere.  Take, take and take.  Be certain to take and own it all.  Take all of hers.  Whoooa!  Now what literally mother – fucking application of the worldwide concept of aprovechar is that!  Sperm Exaltation!

 

A FLIP / REVERSE would never have even entered itself onto any judge’s radar.  To decree this –– onto a man?  Onto a father?  To be controlled, this daddy, by a woman?  By his ex – wife?  A father – fucking?!  Fuck –– never!

 

This, … this patently patriarchally decreed “program of mental therapy?”  Well –– this I, along with Grace Portia’s initial and absolutely passionate insistence as well, resolved that I, Dr. Legion True, true mother, would never do.  I refused.

 

Friend proceeded with the account at the Tribune on the 24^th, “Yeah, Abbey got it; and after all the laughing died down, why, she went to work on it.  Around 5, the boss must’ve seen her leaving.  She was outside on the sidewalk headed to her car.  He bolted out the door and grabbed her arm from behind –– kinda draggin’ her back up to the front door all the time yelling at her.  The rest of us?! –– Well, we all ran to the window.”

 

“He did what?!  Isn’t that assault?!  In the workplace that’s assault, isn’t it?!  What then?  What happened?”

 

“Seems he hated her story.  That’s what happened.  Her first one, that is.  Thought it was way, way too watered down.  He actually literally threw Abbey back into her chair in front of her monitor and was still screaming at her, and I’m quoting here now, Legion, ‘Put the goddamn titillating, juicy stuff back in it, Abbey.  Do it!  Do it now!’  That’s what he told her to do.  And, … an’ then he just stood there.  Over her shoulder the entire time.  Till she got it done.  The second version of it.  The one she’d tried so hard …

not … to write at all!”

 

“Om’frickin’gaaawd, Friend!  Unfuckingbelievable!” 

 

“JYeah, I’ll say!  Well, you can imagine:  we’re all tiptoeing around here yet today.  We are so shuuut the hell up, I’m telling ya’, Legion!”

 

“I guess.  Whoooa, Friend, it is bad, isn’t it?!  I’m certainly done as a candidate.  Not to mention through and done, too, as a mama, huh?!”

 

“Well, yeah, Legion, it so does look exactly that way.  You are through being a candidate; that’s for damn sure.  Talked to Margot yet?”  Friend meant Margot, the Party’s county chairwoman.  I hadn’t I replied. 

Not at that point yet, I had not.

 

AmTaham was so sad.  Angry, too.  AmTaham did angry about the same way that I did angry:  in nearly utter silence for days and days and days.  He didn’t talk now as he drove.  I was so sad, too, but happy to finally be headed home –– such as my home now was:  what with Mehitable’s and Herry’s both having ‘rearranged’ my house and all of its inhabitants and all of its contents to suit just the two of them!

 

Grace told me during the first week in which I’d gone missing that Herry had come around multiple times to hers and Lionel’s so she suspected he’d been over to Havencourt and speaking then to Mehitable, too, when Mirzah, Jesse and Zane had gone from the Portias back over to there; but she wasn’t certain on that point.     “I do have to tell ya’ something you are just not going to believe though, Legion!  Herry actually said to both Lionel and to me that we should all get together with him and Fannie McLive – now.  Ya’ know, like before – with all of our Boys.  Go out together for supper and come over and visit and they all come by for pie and coffee or something!  JYeah, he actually did say “pie”?!!  He did!  He said “pie”!!  Like you, Legion, like you didn’t exist!  Like you never even existed before!  As if you –– Zane, Jesse and Mirzah’s actual mama?  Just as if you’d never really ever existed at all either, Legion!  He made you … ah, ya’ know … sound invisible!  Know what Lionel did?  He just glared him down.  Not one word came out of Lionel.  Then he turned his back on Herry and went down to the basement.  Takes a lot to shock Lionel, ya’ know.  Believe me, Legion, Lionel was stunned!”  I believed her; I believed Lionel was stunned.

 

We were grieving, Mirzah, Jesse, Zane, AmTaham and me.  Mehitable’s voice was the last one I needed to hear and, so unfortunately, the only one talking.  Fuck, those first days of the orange and brown harvest month were nearly my darkest, I thought.  Things were about to get a helluva lot blacker; I could not even have imagined then just how black.  Years later, Adam and Abraham from Quaker Meeting recounted the Ames Tribune events that ensued and unfolded while the Trues and the Truemaier Boys remained sequestered on Havencourt awaiting the 13^th day of October, that particular month’s second Saturday, in 1990. 

 

Come to find out, Reporter Abbey Gaffey had, indeed, … been fired! 

 

And was leaving town on nearly the exact same day that AmTaham drove me home –– in order to move back in with her own parents in Sioux City, up in the very same northwest Iowa direction but even a bit further on from Ames than Cherokee.  Two Quakers walked into the downtown offices of the Ames Tribune to speak to its editor – in – chief where they then learned that over 300 subscriptions had been dropped within a month after the front – page article had run and that letters to its editor had poured in regarding its soooo, so – yellow, tabloid journalism.  None, the Quakers were told, of the letters went after me or my “obsession” ––  as the High Aggrandizier decreed my stance had been on Herry’s sexual addiction and his paternal parenting behavior with my Boys. 

 

In addition to the one entitled with AmTaham’s vocabulary word in its headliner, “Story appealed to prurient interest,” another letter published had been written by a fellow Kate Mitchell Elementary classmate of Jesse, Zane and Mirzah’s –– whose own mama had coached Mirzah and Jesse in their early – morning, before – school sessions of French and German.  The child’s submission was entitled “Truemaier story was in poor taste.”  The Truemaier Boys’ classmate wrote, “To the Editor:  I think the article in the Sept. 25 Daily Tribune entitled ‘Judge: Mental disturbance key in True custody case’ with its second page headline of ‘Kids:  Psychiatric counseling recommended’ was in poor taste.  I don’t think there is any purpose in putting that article in the paper.  Other people have no business knowing the details of the Trues’ and the Truemaiers’ personal lives.  All the article does is drag their family through the mud.  I also really don’t understand why you put the sons’ names in the article.  I don’t know when you went to school last, but I’m in the seventh grade at the Ames Middle School and if someone wrote an article like that about my family I would be very upset.”  The minor student signed it. 

 

The Quakers Abraham and Adam had asked –– in person –– for an explanation and a retraction:  an apology.  The big – shot men of the Tribune’s answer to them and to the furious citizens of Ames was their firing of

Ms. Abbey Gaffey, the Tribune’s “unbridled reporter” –– which is how they, her boss ... and that man’s boss, had ever – so – androcentrically – and – conveniently excused themselves –– by terming and, thus, …

by sacrificing … this particular peon – DEhuman worker to their Ames community. 

 

I myself spoke by telephone to Ms. Gaffey in the spring of 1995, 4½ years after its headlining publication.  Around Mother’s Day it was then.  She absolutely and utterly confirmed Friend’s accounting of all of the  events of Monday, 24 September 1990, at the Ames Tribune building –– right down to the part where her boss, Mr. Gary Gerlach, had indeed, “stood over my shoulder the entire time till I finished its juiciness to his titillated satisfaction!” 

 

Then Ms. Abbey said something else rather riveting, “Ya’ know, Dr. True, I was out of a job for six months.  Not only did I have to move back in with my parents but I was also blackballed and couldn’t get work anywhere at a newspaper in Iowa.  They made me your, um, I mean, their scapegoat for folks’ outrage.            I teach writing and composition at this little, itsy bitsy college over the border inside Nebraska now at a really, really small town there called Wayne.  That’s it.  It’s okay.  Not what I had wanted to do at all, but it’s okay.  But ya’ know what?  Every single chance I get, every single one, I tell my journalism students anywhere never, never, ever to go do their internships at the Ames Tribune, I don’t care how hootie – tootie or hoity – toity its publisher is.”  She was referring, of course, to the Ames Tribune’s Pulitzer Prize – winning editorialist and also its owner and publisher, Mr. Michael Gartner, himself the former president of NBC News –– until its fraudulent reporting! documented in Dateline’s GM trucks’ story, brought Gartner down off that particular pillar –– but, now?  Now, Mr. Michael Gartner presently owns Iowa’s triple A ball club, the Iowa Cubs. 

 

We Quakers?  We never got our apology.  And I?  The crazed whore of an unfit mother?  I was out of the running for my jobs, too.  Finished.  Kaput.  Finito.  Either as candidate for county recorder or … as mama.

 

*     *     *     *

 

What a near perfect soul – murdering stratagem of Pissed – off, Gut – the – Bloody – Bitch Herry’s!  Cunning and calculation in this fairly smart pillar.  “Keep Legion poor, as poor as I can manage from here, here from behind the main curtain of The Opera!  Smear her!  Keep her from that cushy county job, and what’s more?  O, what hard copy have I now to use against her anyfuckingwhere else that I so choose to!  To smash her with it!  To crush her!  She sure’s hell, poor as a fucking church mouse, can’t continue to keep coming after me –– and certainly not in fucking court if she hasn’t got a fucking lawyer!  Or, the means to pay one with!” 

 

No matter the Truth.  No matter the opprobrious Eight Pages’ Truth ! ! !

 

The “evidence” that was truly “key” in Act Two Part One, that is Trial Two’s, Respondent’s Exhibit S –– that’d be S as in “sex addict.” 

 

What follows is from Herry’s own script scribbled down onto pages taken from a Pfizer drug rep’s freebie doxycycline hyclate pad left from time to time around the laboratory of the Good and Wonderful Doctor, that is, from out of Dr Herod Edinsmaier’s own hand!  Verbatim! and In Toto!  [except for the bracketed phrases which are my only added comments]: