*this is exactly what the pool at my Dad’s at the California Club looked like. I like to call it “The POOL.”*
So if you’ve read this website enough, you’ve probably noticed that I talk about my family. A lot. It’s been suggested to me that I start posting the stories of what happened… So, here is a story about “Cousin Jeffrey”, who was my cousin named Jeffrey. It’s also about my Dad and how things were right before he kidnapped my brother, my sisters and I from Miami and how we ended up in California. Enjoy.
Cousin Jeffrey
Cousin Jeffrey was 33 years old. He looked like Charles Manson. He wore dirty faded Levi’s, no shirt, an Army jacket which was always left open, and no shoes. He was homeless, so my Dad decided to make him Vice President of his company, “so he could take care of things while I wasn’t there. I paid him $200 a week. After I stopped paying him he sued me for $50,000. He’s a drug sicko.” He sold my dad’s BMW to himself for a dollar. My dad says “They were gonna kill him.” My Dad didn’t say who “They” were again, as usual.
Cousin Jeffrey carried 4 shotguns in the trunk of his car. He had just gotten out of prison, although that was sort of kept hush hush, since my father believed he had created an excellent reputation for himself and his representatives, I mean his family. Cousin Jeffrey lied and told people he was a federal undercover agent. ”He made stories” my dad says in his thick Bronx accent. My dad says he had to pay $22,000 in legal bills just to get his BMW back. He had an ethnic girlfriend that my Dad thinks was an Aborigine, although I remember her as sort of Asian, probably Pacific Islander or from Taiwan. My Dad says “she was a Heinz 57 variety”. I asked what that means. He said “who knows. She was a ketchup, she was beans… In other words you don’t know who her parents were. Cousin Jeffrey was a liar. He claimed she was the head of the Mafia’s girlfriend.” His Father, Uncle Leonard, apparently sold stamps. ”The whole house was full of stamps. He stole $102,900 from me.” Of course my Dad remembers the exact amount of money that Uncle Leonard uncle “stole” from him. My Dad remembers the exact amount of money that Every. Single. Person. On. This. Planet. “stole” from him.
In fact, that’s the only thing my Dad remembers. He doesn’t remember me getting diagnosed with epilepsy, going to the hospital from seizures at summer camp three years in a row. Although he does remember the summer camp “trying to get money out of” him. Oh, my dad also remembers that I had a vaginal infection in kindergarten. I know he remembers this because he brought it up at least once a month until I was 29 years old and found out that that was weird. “The principal of the school Virginia Boone called me and told me you had a VAGINAL infection….” on and on he goes about this, as if he’s a hero for answering Virginia Boone’s phone call about my 7 year old vagina. Anyway this isn’t about my vagina, yet. We can deal with my vagina and the naked showers under a hose in the backyard my dad would give me until i was like 13, just like our dog Max, later. Right now this is about Cousin Jeffrey.
Cousin Jeffrey’s name was Jeffrey, but we all called him Cousin Jeffrey. I never thought about why. That was his name. Cousin Jeffrey. So when my parents got separated, my Dad felt he needed some people on his team, other than of course his child army he was training which consisted of myself, my older brother, my older sister, and my younger sister. I was 7.
My Dad was convinced that my mother was trying to get him put in jail, and he never talked about anything else. “Your MOTHER is trying to put me in jail! If you don’t help me she’s gonna put me away!” I didn’t know what I was supposed to do to help him, but I was really scared that my Dad was gonna be put in jail and it would be my fault because I didn’t help him. I really had to figure out how to help him. I just knew it was gonna end bad, my Dad would be in prison, and it would all be my fault. Everything was my fault. I was really smart, like my Dad always said. “Lisa is a very bright and sensitive child.” I never knew much about myself, but I knew that I was a “very bright and sensitive child” because that was pretty much the only thing my Dad ever said about me to other people, and to me. Except when he said it to me he switched out “Lisa” for “You.”
*(talking about my vagina doesn’t count as talking about me, since he’s talking about anatomy on my body).
I guess I didn’t try hard enough to make things happen the way my Dad wanted to. Like getting the Custody and Divorce Judge Moey Tendrich to stop. My Dad was always really mad at Moey Tendrich. I knew this because he always yelled at me about him, in between crying hysterically. ”Your MOTHER and Moey Tendrich I’ll have him disbarred! You’d better stop your mother if you don’t want your father in JAIL!!!” I’m still not clear on what it was that Moey Tendrich was doing that I was supposed to stop, but I was clear that I failed getting him to stop, because my Dad stayed angry about him not stopping, and my lack of ability to make him.
I thought it was so weird that my mom was trying to put my dad in jail, especially because she acted so normal at home. I thought my mom must have been a REALLY good liar and a really good actress. Oh, and I also had just found out that my mother was a prostitute.
See, my Dad was really good about making sure us kids were constantly informed about what was really going on. So he used whatever visitation time he had with us to explain the legal and judicial system to us, and how They were gonna get him. And to let us know that my mother was “a whore. Your mother only cares about money.” I was only 7, so I took that literally and believed for the next 7 years that my mother was a prostitute.
I, for some reason, knew that prostitutes had sex with men for money, and my mother, who I was just informed was a whore + only cared about money = woman who has sex and only cares about money = sex for money = prostitute. I didn’t really ever wonder if most 7 year olds knew these kinds of things. I mean, I was really smart so I was supposed to know everything. At least that’s what my Dad always said.
I was an avid watcher of Fantasy Island and Love Boat and Charlies Angels, all shows that had women who were really pretty and wore sexy clothes that I one day wanted to look like. Until I found out they were whores, which meant they were prostitutes! I didn’t want to grow up to be a prostitute! So I stopped taking showers. That would make me not look like those women for sure. Then I would be safe and They wouldn’t get me. And for sure now They wouldn’t get my Dad, because without me showering I wouldn’t be as noticeable and sexy. And this would definitely insure not just my safety and my Dad’s safety, but the safety of my brother and sisters who my Dad also always told me They were gonna get. All because I stopped taking showers.
Since my Dad needed a grown up to commiserate with about how he was going to jail, and how They were gonna get him, he chose Cousin Jeffrey. Excellent choice! Cousin Jeffrey and his Aboriginal girlfriend and her kid who was always naked were always at my Dad’s condo at the California Club. Ironically enough, the California Club, located in Miami and not California, was a happening scene for the Disco crowd. My Dad loved Disco music. It was a Disco-era Country Club. He used to take me dancing there. I noticed a lot of women who looked really pretty and really sexy which of course made them prostitutes, now that I finally knew the truth.
Cousin Jeffrey’s girlfriend’s kid was always peeing on the grass outside. When I asked why he did that, Cousin Jeffrey would say “It’s fertilizer.” Maybe that’s when my fascination with peeing outside that would surface in my 20′s started? I don’t know.
So it’s Saturday night. My mother, the prostitute, is out on a date, or rather turning a trick, with Superman. He showed up at my house wearing a Superman outfit. That’s all I remember about this guy. My Mom asked “Kids, do you wanna meet Superman?” And I screamed “No!” and ran. I was no fool! Superman my ass. He was a john! I wasn’t going to have any part of this suburban prostitution ring. No way. I was 7 years old and I knew shit.
So while my mom was out turning tricks with Superman, and probably Batman and Robin and who knows what other superheros, my older sister and I sat home watching tv in my Mom’s room. The phone rang and I answered it. ”Hello?”
“Don’t move.” It was a man’s voice. ”I have a shotgun pointed into your window. If you move I’m gonna shoot you and your sister.” Holy shit! How does he know I am with my sister? This is just like on tv. I knew tv was real!! I was scared. My stomach hurt. I was frozen. I looked to my sister for comfort since she was old, she was 11. She just stared.
“I know what room you’re in. Grey carpet and grey blinds. Do. Not. Move. Or I will kill you. And your sister. I know your mother is not home.”
I was scared shitless. He knows the carpet is grey! This is real! Why is my Mom out turning tricks with superheroes? Dad is right! They are gonna get us without him!
I literally didn’t move for the next 3 hours. Finally my mom came home and I was hysterical. She said not to worry that it was just a prank call. That’s it. That’s all she said about it. That’s all I remember.
this is from a movie. it is fictional
About two weeks later there was a huge crashing sound in our large house at 4 am. Then the sound of a car screeching. It was Cousin Jeffrey. He drove head on into our garage door, smashed through it, and took off. I guess he was trying to teach my mom a lesson, and back up my Dad’s claims that They were gonna get me, us, his kids. I didn’t know at the time that it was Cousin Jeffrey, so of course I was even more convinced that my Dad was right. They were definitely gonna get me if I wasn’t with my Father 24 hours a day. He was the only person on the planet who could stop Them from getting me. “Nothing’s gonna happen to you not when your father’s around,” he would say then and for the next 20 plus years in his loose, 15 year old grey (used to be white) BVD’s with his balls hanging out of the side.
Of course Cousin Jeffrey also turned out to be the mystery caller, but the damage had already been done. I was already convinced. This was the beginning of my Dad’s Systematic Brainwashing of me:
They are definitely gonna get me…
Lisa Roth
Tags: California Club, cousin Jeffrey, crazy father, disco, gross, incest, kidnapping, Lisa Roth, Miami, my mother, prostitutes, sexy times with your family, sociopath, the pool, this shit is not cool
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