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Don Greenwood
The Wicked Witch of the West
His sister-in-law had drunk quite a bit of wine, and he noticed a slight slurring of her speech. He knew
she was very angry and bitter, as she recited her litany of complaints. He had not been a good son to his Mother,
and now to his Father. He had not been a good brother or uncle. He should have come right out to California
from Ohio, when his mother died, and not waited until just before her memorial service. He should have come
right out when his brother told him his father had fallen and probably would need brain surgery. His behavior in
front of she and his family had too often been improper and annoying. He just sat and listened to his sister in
law, Karen, partly in fear and partly in a growing anger.
Karen was the “ugly duckling” of her family, with a younger sister, brother, and mother who were
among the most attractive people Doug had known. Her face seemed out of whack, with her eyes off line, and her
ears too big. She had skin problems, and now her face was pasty, with too much makeup. Her mother, sister, and
brother had always been very nice to he and his family, while Karen had often been very critical and derogatory.
Her eyes so often looked as if she was enraged and resentful. They were tiny and a very dark brown, sometimes
even seeming black. Now his brother had already gone to bed, leaving them alone.
He went on the defensive each time he entered she and his brother’s home. Doug prepared himself for
the inevitable mention of his past by Karen and Gary. There was the time he got outraged at some young punks
beating up middle-aged Hispanic men at the Dodger Game. The time when he got very angry when his 1971
Chevy wouldn’t start. Next came the recitation of his extreme anger when he and his wife’s luggage were lost
just before his parent’s 50th Anniversary Celebration. Then there was her belittling of the way he used the Equal
packet to clean his teeth at the end of meals. There were other favorites, which she and his brother loved to recite,
usually in front of his wife and sons.
Sitting across from her, he was exhausted and coughing. He had quietly gone to a doctor that day and
been told what he already knew. He felt pretty sure he had pneumonia weeks before he boarded the 6 a.m. flight
from his Cleveland home to the Orange County Airport. He had taken a taxi straight to the hospital, arriving
just as his father was coming out of successful surgery. His Dad had taken both he and his brother’s hands in his,
and thanked them with tears rolling down his cheeks.
Why did Karen hate him so? Had she turned his brother against him, or had it been the other way
around? He realized he had a tendency to blame Karen for it all, while being too tolerant of his brother’s
complicity. Most often they were both equally derogatory and difficult.
Now he was so tired but so angry. The anger rose to the surface and spilled over in one outpouring of
what had been building within him for years. He got up off the couch, stood over her, looking her directly in the
eyes. “That’s it! I’ve had enough of your shit! I’ve taken nothing but shit from you all these years, and I’ve had
it up to here! I’m not taking any more. I’ve tried to ignore all the shit you’ve dished out, but I can’t ignore it any
more. Good night!”
With that he wheeled around and headed toward the bedroom he’d been assigned, his niece’s former
room. As he left he heard Karen exclaim, “Oh no!” Then he quickly closed the door. His tired, middle-aged
heart was beating too fast. He was breathing hard, his high blood pressure he knew had spiked. He felt his usual
guilt, but told himself this time he was not going to apologize. That would only serve to once again make him
“little Dougie,” who was the family “black sheep.” No, instead he quickly got undressed and slipped into the cold
bed.
When Doug got up around 8 the next morning Gary and Karen had both left for work. He called his
brother at his office and asked if they could have lunch. At noon he drove his father’s old ’88 Oldsmobile to his
brother’s Main Street Office, and they went close by to one of Gary’s favorite places. He asked if they could have
a both with some privacy, and there they uncomfortably sat.
Doug didn’t waste time getting to the point about the previous night’s altercation. Gary did a poor job
pretending he didn’t know there had been a “problem.” Doug tried to get his brother to realize that there were
boundaries to every set of family relationships. The two of them were brothers, blood relatives, and that is
important. When it came Doug’s wife Andrea’s family, Doug made a point of not interfering with her
relationships with her mother or sisters. There had been some Robinson Family tension. Doug had sometimes
been tempted to get in the middle. He had wanted to tell them they were mistreating his wife, but he didn’t. He
had reminded himself that he was a relative “by marriage.” Now he so wanted Karen to realize this.
Gary made a feeble effort to show he understood, but said almost nothing. His one emotional point
came when he told Doug he had sometimes treated Karen the way she treated him. Doug nodded, yes, that he
knew that and would try harder to stop that. But, all in all, the luncheon seemed like two men who acted more
like strangers than brothers.
After lunch he drove back to the hospital and found his Dad resting comfortably and asleep. Taking the
chair next to the bed he couldn’t keep his eyes open and was soon asleep only to awake to see Karen’s dark eyes
staring at both his father and he. She was not in the actual Intensive Care room, but pressed against the class
doorway leading to the nurse’s station. When she saw his eyes open she quickly turned and left. Now why didn’t
she come in and at least ask about her father-in-law?
That night back at his brother’s house, he excused himself soon after supper, because he was really tired.
It must have been somewhere around 9 o’clock when he fell asleep. Suddenly someone sitting on the couch-bed
where he slept awakened him. He had almost been pushed out of the small bed. He quickly sat up and asked who
it was. It was his brother!
Gary was sobbing and crying. “What are you doing here?” “What is going on and why are you crying?”
After what seemed like forever, Gary spoke, and in halting speech told him he couldn’t take it any more. Karen
was driving him absolutely crazy. His life was miserable. He had found himself spending hours looking at
Internet pornography. From this he began to visit sex stores and to meet men he didn’t even know. He would
masturbate them and they would return the favor. Just two weeks ago he was cruising a nearby park, and had met
a stranger behind a large tree, only to be arrested by undercover police. Karen had just told him last week she
was filing for a divorce.
Doug put his arm around his only brother and related to him his own story of sexual addiction. This
same addiction had cost him his job, and almost his career. His life had become a hell on earth. He was so run
down physically that he had had pneumonia now for two months. If he had not entered therapy and a 12-Step
Recovery Program for sexual addiction, he probably would have killed himself.
“Gary, come back with me to Cleveland, and I’ll get you some help, the same help that saved my life. It’s
been thirty-six years since I left Orange County, and I don’t know what kind of help you can get here. You can
live with Andrea and I, until you get back on your feet and understand what’s been going on with you all these
years.” Gary only sobbed again, put his arms around Doug, and thanked him.
Two days later, after their father left the hospital for an assisted living facility the two brothers boarded
a plane for Cleveland, leaving “the Wicked Witch of the West,” behind. Both of them regretted leaving their
Father, neither had any regrets about Karen. What did she do about all this? She moved in with the neighbor
across the street, with which she had been having an affair with for two years.
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