So I got a new album. These days I rarely spend hard earned cash on music, relying instead on You tube and my own personal collection of oldies known and loved for decades for entertainment. But this wasn't just any artist, this was one of my all time favorites, Randy Stonehill, and I wanted to support his music. So I splurged and purchased a CD. Driving down the road I popped it in and listened while keeping my eyes on the rain slicked highway in front of me. I had noted as I scanned the CD cover that there was a song on the album called Leonard has a Toaster. It sounded quirky, and if you know Randy, you know some of his best music is quite quirky, so I was intrigued. I knew Randy's dad was named Leonard, and I knew he had recently passed away, so I wondered if it was some kind of tribute or funny song about his father. But as the acoustic guitar came tumbling out of my car speakers, and the lyrics poured forth, I found myself in shock, driving down the road with my hand over my mouth, trying not to cry.
Because it wasn't a tribute. And it wasn't funny. And it could have been written about my life.
Leonard has a toaster...but Leonard's toast just never comes out right...Every time he puts the bread in it pops up either too dark or too light...As a child I would watch his face become a vision of frustration and fright...As if to say beware this life my friend....the undertow will drown you in the end...You may briefly know some happiness that tricks you until everything goes wrong...Leonard has a toaster...reminding him he never did belong.
As I drove down the road, hand over my mouth, a scene from my childhood flashed through my mind. It was morning and I was standing in the living room doorway, in my favorite chiffon nightgown. I was watching as my stepfather systematically destroyed all of my mother's precious things with a hammer. I must have been about six. Maybe seven. It was terrifying, standing there, watching the guitar splinter, the camera lens shatter, and his determined face as he stooped there, on the floor. I don't remember any yelling, although there must certainly have been yelling. There was always yelling and screaming at our house. He wasn't in a blind rage, wildly destroying everything within range. He just knelt there on the floor, quietly, methodically smashing and smashing and smashing.
Lee Lee has a hammer...flitted through my mind. And with it he would smash my mother's things...Or other people's things, as it turned out. The guitar hadn't even belonged to my mother, but he didn't know that. It had been borrowed from her sister, a treasured high school graduation gift for her from their parents. He had destroyed it for nothing.
The song rocked me back. And so did the memory. It has been a long time since I thought of that particular event. Most of the memories of my childhood have been pushed down deep. I don't think about them, they are just there, the background fabric of my life. But every once in awhile one pops up unexpectedly, like one of those old Jack in the Box toys. Rather than push it's ugly face back down, I have decided to allow myself to look at it. Examine it. Explore my feelings and associated emotions about it from a grown up perspective. This may involve some post memory anger, and maybe some questions, as well. This will also allow Jesus to come along side me and show me a few things, and enable me to forgive where forgiveness is necessary, and to separate truth from fiction. Because one of the things I have discovered, is that there are a lot of half truths and flat out lies out there handed down from person to person, like some ugly family heirloom, and heralded as truth. I finally figured out that just because somebody said it, even somebody I may love and trust, doesn't make it so. I felt a lot better once I began to sift through the truth and lies, and throw out what I realized was just generational garbage.
But I digress.
I didn't realize this particular memory held so much pain for me, until a few years ago. I was having a casual conversation with my sister, and mentioned how much I hated seeing people use musical instruments as furniture, i.e. pianos as beds or shelves or benches, and guitars made into tables (I had just seen a coffee table made out of what had been four beautiful guitars.) In the conversation I made mention of that insurance commercial in which they drop a baby grand from four stories up and smash it on the ground, and also that I could never abide watching a rock concert where smashing guitars was part of the program. Me too. She said. Why do you suppose we hate that stuff. Do you suppose it's because of Lee Lee and him smashing Mom's guitar? I remember sucking in my breath at the question. I had never considered it before. It never would have occurred that my deep seated hatred for all things musically destructive would have roots. It was mind blowing. And a little liberating. Like a little thread of my life had just become untangled.
I think about my stepdad.
When Lee Lee met my mother, he was just 18 years old. This gives me pause. 18 years old. From my present age of 53 I can look back at him and realize he was just a baby! My stepdad was a teenager! This is not an excuse for his behavior, However, from my now adult perspective I realize that his brain wasn't even fully developed yet. When he married my mother he became the instant head of a full fledged messed up family. Together they had a hippy life. Not happy. Hippy. Dope, long hair, peace, love, and dysfunction all around.
But back to the day that lives in infamy. I have just had the realization that this might have been the very first memory I have of him being violent. There would be many incidents after, but I don't really remember anything before this, although I am certain there must have been incidents that I just don't know about or remember. After he systematically took a hammer to everything, things may have calmed down for a few hours. That is to say, I don't have any memory of anything else until that evening when things heated up again. That night found him cutting up my mother's clothes, and subsequently fending off police in the back yard with the same knife. The boys in blue came and we ended up leaving the house and spending the night with a friend of my mother's. He gave me a book, The Swiss Family Robinson to take home. I carried it with me, a relic of that horrible night, until this very year. I finally wondered why I still had it and donated it to Goodwill.
My stepdad lived with us for about six or seven more very long years before he and mom finally got a divorce. After the final "big fight" they had, in which he chased her around the house with a gun, he finally went his own way and moved away from his local family and to another state far away. I didn't think I would ever see him again, and frankly, never wanted to.
I grew up, got married, moved to California, had kids and ceased to think about Lee Lee or the hell he wreaked on our lives as kids.
However, just when I thought he couldn't get any further to the back of my mind, he made a sudden and unexpected reappearance, much to my surprise and dismay. I was sitting at a booth at Grandy's with my husband and kids, enjoying some good fried chicken, and facing the front of the restaurant, when he, or his exact doppleganger, came waltzing by with that familiar lilting step ,to the back, presumably to the bathroom. I almost dropped my fork and fell out of my seat. It was the only time in my life that I have thanked God that I gotten fat. He would never recognize me. I hid my face when he came out anyway, just in case.
When we left the restaurant, I saw him at the counter. I stared at his back , and stared at his thumbs, weird as that may sound, to see if they were spatulate, thinking Could that POSSIBLY be him? Gaining the parking lot, I saw that there were only a couple of cars outside. One of them was a white truck and it was literally covered with bumper stickers. Anti God. Anti government. Anti People. Anti everything. And then I knew it had to be him.
Oh, Lee Lee. I hope you find the love of Jesus.
Leonard has a Toaster...I know because I'm Leonard's youngest son...And I have wrestled with these phantoms that have robbed me like a bandit with a gun...Now Daddy tried his best, I don't blame him for the damage that's been done...Age to age the dysfunction carries on...like the passing of some toxic baton...Every generation leaves a legacy of blessings and of pain...Leonard has a toaster...it might as well have been a ball and chain.
Oh we read from this unwritten script, that tells us who we are...
it's amazing how these unseen wounds can leave such lasting scars.
Leonard has a toaster...I still have it with me to this day...Oh it's always right behind me, though years ago we tossed that thing away...If a child is taught that failure is a sin, there's an awful price to pay...
See the problem wasn't toasters after all...it's a lack of love that makes your soul feel small.
I learned about the family tree that taught my dad to be this joyless jerk...Leonard has a toaster...I hear Granddad was a real piece of work. Leonard has a toaster. Granddad was a real piece of work.
Now there are times I'm still haunted by the ghost of dear old Leonard's toast.
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