the judge’ll have revenge today

They say women never forget things, but I think men are just as bad. They can live for years infamously on one story, one circumstance from years past.

Thanksgiving this year was celebrated by my family, Art, Andrea, Terry, Jerry and Bernard at a restaurant called Troika. Troika is a Russian restaurant known to my father and Arthur as being the place to get vodka. They line up the soldiers and just go down the line one at a time. They have managed to get pretty drunk doing this, although it happened only once. I don’t know if it was because it was their first time, or due to the different company each time, but they have yet to duplicate that first time. Each year they plan for the trip up to the restaurant for a night of soldiers. They talk over and over about that first time and how much they drank. But they can’t seem to duplicate the amount consumed that first time. Its like a mark they reached once and now have no reason to reprove themselves, to each other or to anyone new.

Women may remember injuries done to them for years, but men remember accomplishments for years. Women can draw out the guilt forever. Men can draw out the pride forever.

So we’re coming back from Montreal and I’ve reached my limit with my parents. There’s only so much togetherness I can take with them. I can live with them because in all honesty I rarely see them. But on vacation like this, its a bit much. Its been almost four days and I’m ready for my space, my room, my car, my time. Its partly control because when I’m with my parents, my father is in complete control. I might state my opinion, but when he decides something, that’s it.

I didn’t pick my parents. Don’t get me wrong, I love them and all they have done for me. I do appreciate what they still do for me now, but I didn’t pick them. When my dad does something odd, my mother looks at me and says “He’s your father.” My answer has always been “You picked him. I’m stuck with him.” Of course that is all in good fun. But there is a serious side to all of it. I didn’t decide I wanted to spend the rest of my life with them. Neither of them spent this much time with their parents. At my age, my mother was engaged and preparing for marriage. At my age, my father was married. They were both much farther removed from their “home nests” at twenty-one. All that is fine and wonderful, but they have raised me to be independent and at twenty-one, they expect me to act like I’m still in grade school. Its a contradiction in terms with them. I am supposed to be an adult and a child at the same time.

Part of that does have to do with being an only child. They have no other children to focus their energy and emotions on, but it creates a very tough thing to live with. Even Manny doesn’t completely understand all this. For one thing, he is a boy and I don’t care what anyone says, there is a difference. Parents treat boys different than girls. I’m not getting into it all, but it is different. So Manny may be an only child, but it was different for him because he was a boy. Manny also went away to college and demanded respect from him parents. Respect, might I add, that he got from them. I demand respect from my parents and they basically laugh at me. Ok, maybe not that bad, but I am my father’s only daughter, his little girl. He will never respect me the way he would respect a son. My father will never respect me the way Manny’s father respects him. Its just different and it always will be.

Anyways, I’m ready to go home. Tonight. And I have a funny feeling I’m going to be overruled and we’ll stay in the cabin tonight. I don’t want to. I want to go home and sleep in my own bed, in my own room. I didn’t sleep well last night because I was cold and the pull-out bed was one of the worst I’ve ever used. We didn’t go to breakfast at Chez Cora, which is something I was really looking forward to. This is the second time we’ve gone to Montreal and Chez Cora got knocked off our do-to list. We go to stupid fucking Troika where Art and my father get plastered. We go to his train museum. We go the back route, stomach-lurching way home. The one thing I wanted to do, the ONE FUCKING THING, was to go to Chez Cora. They decided, without me, we wouldn’t do Chez Cora. And their reason was bullshit. They claim they are too full from the night before. Mom told me she wasn’t too full and Dad could have gotten over it. Chez Cora is the one thing I want to do. This is the second time. Shit on me once, shame on you. Shit on me twice, shame on me. I’m not doing this damn trip with them anymore. I get a crappy bed and I don’t get to do the one thing I want.

Can you tell I’m cranky? I know I’m cranky, so I’m trying to keep to myself and just endure the trip home. But do you know how hard it is to keep to yourself in a car?

Oh Mama, I’m in fear for my life from the long arm of the law
Law man has put an end to my running and I’m so far from my home

The jig is up, the news is out
They finally found me
The renegade who had it made
Retrieved for a bounty
Never more to go astray
This’ll be the end today
Of the wanted man

Oh Mama, I’ve been years on the lam and had a high price on my head
Lawman said ‘Get him dead or alive’ and it’s for sure he’ll see me dead
Dear Mama I can hear you cryin’, you’re so scared and all alone
Hangman is comin’ down from the gallows and I don’t have very long

The jig is up, the news is out
They finally found me
The renegade who had it made
Retrieved for a bounty
Never more to go astray
The judge’ll have revenge today
On the wanted man

Oh Mama, I’m in fear for my life from the long arm of the law
Law man has put an end to my running and I’m so far from my home

The jig is up, the news is out
They finally found me
The renegade who had it made
Retrieved for a bounty
Never more to go astray
This’ll be the end today
Of the wanted man

Renegade ~ Styx