rob

Robert Foster was a piece of work. An alcoholic, a disenfranchised white man, a construction worker disillusioned from the American Dream, and a violent drunk.

My mom was with Robert from the time I was around four to eight, on and off until I was about 11, and then this really short period when I was maybe 15. It was a wild seven years that involved countless cops and trips to pick him up from the jail all the time. When his son, Ben, was out from Phoenix to live with us for a year or so, my mom would take us to get breakfast in the mornings, after Rob got arrested, but before we went to pick him up from jail. I’d always order silver dollar pancakes with scrambled eggs and apple juice.

Rob would do things like grab a broom and use the handle to bang on the ceiling while he was yelling at us, and the upstairs neighbors at the same time with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. He would come home and eat a giant plate of food while he drank until he either passed out– or started a fight and then passed out. I remember each night just hoping it was the type of night he would just be kinda silly and fall asleep in his chair with a cigarette in his hand. There were a bunch of burns on the arm of the chair from when he would fall asleep like that. Sometimes he burned the webbing between his fingers.More often than not though, it was going to be the type of night where he would pick a fight with me, my mom, or Ben about something small and then it wouldn’t stop until he was out of energy or the cops came. Whichever happened first.

I can still picture this guy. I can hear his voice. He would be in the living room, his plaid work button up still on, no pants on just white chonis and tube socks, with a cigarette in his hand. Politicking to me, a little girl, about Goddamned American Women, and Bill Fucking Clinton, and The Republicans, and the Goddamned Illegal Aliens. Always with the cigarette in his hand, waving around all wild like. Rob was a real Miller Lite poster kind of guy– if you know what I mean.

He had this story he would tell me some nights. It was a story he told me to scare me, because it wasn’t like it had already happened, it was more of a threat. He told me when I turned 13 he was going to take me on a fishing trip, and it would be my last fishing trip. No one would ever hear from me again or know what happened to me. Not even my mom would know. That one was one of his favorites.

***

Living with Rob for all those years taught me about how to hide, how to sneak around, sneak out, and how fucking untrustworthy cops are even though they said, we are here to help you each time. They never helped. Whether or not they arrested Rob each night, they always made it worse.

One time these two cops insisted that they take me into my room without my mom. They said they wanted to make sure I didn’t have any visible signs of abuse. They made me take my shirt off and they looked at me. It was just me and them, two grown men and me, a little girl. I don’t remember them putting their hands on me, not besides touching my hair. Really it was more of them just looking at me and they told me to turn around, to raise my arms, or pick up my ponytail off my neck. I wasn’t totally naked but I felt like I was. I wanted my mom in there with me because I didn’t feel good being shirtless and alone with the two cop men. I don’t really know how long they looked at me like that but it felt like a very long time. Who knows though, I was really little. Would it have even mattered if it was a lady cop? Who knows. Violation is violation. Trauma is trauma. I never trusted cops again of course.

There was a cabinet in the kitchen, kind of in the right corner that I could fit in. We didn’t really keep anything in there, not purposefully, we just didn’t have that many things. It was one of those super deep corner cabinets that are actually kind of impractical because of the shape and angle. At some point my mom showed me that I could fit in there, and no one would see me. It would be a secret spot that only we knew where I was if I ever needed to hide from anyone, cops or Roberts.

She also showed me when I was about five how to pop the screen off my own window. I’ll repeat that again.

When I was five years old my mom showed me how to escape out of my own room should I ever need to run away.

There was the tab in the corner, and you kinda had to push on that while pushing the whole bottom up. The trick was to kind of aim for the opposite corner of the tab. Once that was out I just had to climb up and jump out. It wasn’t very far down because we were a first floor apartment. Don’t worry, climbing and jumping out of my first floor window was still much safer than being in an apartment with Rob lots of nights.

The complex was four units and it was a big backwards L shape with the long part pointing towards Longbranch Ave to the north and the short part at the southside of the lot. Our apartment was C and we were the southeast corner of the L. When I popped out of my window I could walk along the backside long part up to Longbranch and dumpster area, or I could go around the short part of the L and sneak up the stairs to get to our upstairs neighbors in D. I could go there sometimes if I knew they were home, I just had to be sneaky going by our back sliding glass door. If they weren’t home I would just go sit on the street in the tree by the dumpster corral or go to my school’s playground across the street on Longbranch and 10th.

Rob was an abusive asshole, and you could say what you wanted about that motherfucker, and I wouldn’t defend him. He provided though, or tried to. Together my mom and Rob were able to put food on the table and basically keep the lights on. Basically. He did tend to miss a lot of checks though because of you know, being in jail all the fucking time.

I don’t remember there ever being one thing that made my mom decide she was done. I think emotionally it all just got to be too much for them both. They had at least one abortion together, one for sure when I was around six years old. No matter who you are, some couples can only suffer a certain amount of loss before they are totally empty of any kind of love that was once there. I think that is what happened to them. I know there were some times that my mom seemed happy with Rob. For the life of me though, I cannot understand what those reasons were.

***

He was in and out of our lives over the years after they parted ways. My mom and I moved out of Grover Beach and inland to Arroyo Grande. We had a little studio apartment on Newman that was basically a converted garage. He would pop by from time to time, and for a short time we even moved back into the Longbranch apartment because my mom was having a hard time supporting us. When we moved back that time I got my old room, but there were an additional two men in the apartment, both named Jim. Jim and Jimmy Parker actually. Jim didn’t have a last name, not one I remember anyways.

Even after my mom and her next boyfriend, Gilbert, had their whole thing and broke up, Rob was back for a very short time when I was around 15. That time it didn’t even seem romantic, just utilitarian because he was helping us pay rent. They didn’t share a bed, and he slept on the ground because we didn’t own a couch. I think ultimately I was the one who got super pissed because he was living with us, supposedly helping pay rent but PG&E was always cutting our fucking power anyways–so how much was he actually contributing? We got into it one day and that was truly the first, and only, time he ever put his hands on me.

He picked me up and sorta shoved me against the wall when he was trying to move something and my mom fucking lost it that time. She put herself in between us and told him to fuck off and get out for good. Once it was clear he wasn’t gonna try to beat the shit out of either of us she started picking up his things and putting them by the door. They were both doing it and huffing and puffing and honestly part of me was so fucking thrilled, and I didn’t give an honest shit that he just put his hands on me.

He packed up his white van and bumbled away. That was it. After over 10 years on and off of his bullshit he was actually gone for good that time. I saw his van around town of course, but he wasn’t an active part of our lives anymore after that. That nightmare was finally over.