‘Winning Ugly’
Photographer - Tobi Brun
Winning Ugly
Sage:
By the time you read this I’ll be dead. But as for the present, I’m just trying to get from today to tomorrow. It wasn’t always like this, but we live in the reality of the day we are in. I want to savor my last few months on earth. I want to go out with grace and dignity knowing full well that death is death and there’s very little that’s dignified about it. Life is a struggle, no matter who you are. Everyone has problems of one kind or another. Mine stem from being poor, mostly because of bad decisions made in the past that I can’t change now; so they are eating me alive. While a rich person’s problems seems petty and insignificant to a poor person, they are important to them and weigh on them just the same as my problems weigh on me. For the vast majority of people life is a struggle. You struggle. You struggle. You struggle. And then you get to the end and wonder why you let the struggle steal your happiness? For most, just like the poor, struggle will always be amongst us. Struggle is an affliction that we wouldn’t wish upon our worst enemy; and like cancer it just doesn’t care. The only good news is that soon my struggle will be coming to an end, but for Kid the struggle is just beginning.
Nobody came to save us, so we had to save ourselves, This required letting those unwilling to work together for the common good to fall by the wayside. Emotions got stepped on, egos got bruised, and there was hard feelings all around. Well…tough shit, and doubly so for the whinners. Pitch in or get the fuck out, and don’t let the screen door hit you in the ass as you’re leaving. So it’s just me and the step-grandson now, and my only responsibility is to leave him in as good a position as I can before checking out, with the only problem being that if I don’t check out soon the bank will force my hand and foreclose, and he will get nothing.
Kid:
The old man just went crazy. He threw everyone out, and told them not to come back. I don’t know exactly what set him off, but I do know that it was a long time coming. Then he told me that it was us against the world; that I could continue to live here if I didn’t give him any shit and went to school every day. If I wasn’t down with that he could send me to my mother or call Child Protective Services, either way I would be the big loser, so hurry up and decide. I fucking hate school, but I know he means it, so I have to buck up and start going back to school again.
My older cousins started calling him Sage as a putdown because he was always giving unwanted advice as if he were some kind of a guru or something. They didn’t have the nerve to tell him to shut the fuck up, but you could tell that anything that he said to them just went in one ear and out the other. In private conversations with each other they would make fun of him and laugh at what a fool he was. Whenever he defended himself within earshot of Grandma she would tell everyone to calm down, but what she really meant was for him to cool it, and I could see that he hated it. She was surprised when he blew a gasket and told everyone to leave, and she was really pissed when he said that if she didn’t like it, then she could go right along with them.
Sage:
I had enough and hit the boiling point. Thirty years of putting up with losers and malcontents. A steady stream of tools and mooches who always say that they will help out and then they never do. First it was her kids, and then it became her relatives and her grandkids. They argued with me by agreeing with me. They would tell me that I’m right about everything just to get me to stop talking. And then nothing changed. The folly inherent in believing in the supposed generosity of any communal living situation always presents itself in the kitchen where the dirty dishes get piled sky high and accumulate until there are no more dishes to be had. Thereafter, paper plates are employed, and any pots or pans that do get washed are for individual meals only and then returned to the pile. Talk all you want of the brotherhood of man, but in the kitchen it quickly becomes each brother for himself. In truth, they waited me out, knowing that I’d get fed up and go ahead and wash them just so I didn’t have to keep looking at them.
When it came time to collect rent, they were all broke. When it came time to split the bills, they were all broke. Then they went off and ate in nice restaurants. Then they went off to the movies even though we have satellite TV. Then they were playing brand new video games. And the drugs; somehow they managed to score and keep a steady stash on hand. They sure seemed to have a lot of money for someone who was always broke.
Grandma:
I know the situation is hopeless, and I don’t know why he fights it so hard. If he could just be more accepting, life would be a lot easier for everyone else. I’m hurt that he thinks of my family as a bunch of losers. Things are different today than when he grew up. You have to see that children have self-esteem. You have to encourage them; you can’t put them down. I want the kids to be strong-willed and independent, but I’ll admit that it seems that the independent part gets lost in translation. I can see that they take advantage of us, but we disagree on how much. Is it that hard to just accept it and keep the peace? All this contention makes me a nervous wreck. He tells me that it’s hard to keep the peace when no one cares about peace – just what’s good for them, and if they have to shit on others to get it – so what?
He doesn’t seem to get that people don’t change. If fact, he demands change. He expects it. And he gets upset when it doesn’t happen. I didn’t like what was going on, but I knew that there was no real solution and that the best course was to go along to get along. But three weeks ago he just went berserk and started screaming for everyone to get out, and when they laughed at him he started throwing things at them and then he said he was going to get a baseball bat and start breaking knee caps. Then it was shoe soles and assholes as everyone vacated the premises. It was an ugly scene, and I wasn’t going to put up with it. So now I live with my youngest daughter in Oklahoma. She tells me he was always a bastard and that she couldn’t understand why I tolerated it for so long. Kid didn’t want to go with me, and I don’t know if he is going to make it there, but that’s his decision.
Kid:
I didn’t want to go to Oklahoma because Aunt Laura is worse than Sage. She’s lazy and manipulative and self-centered. Grandma will basically be her slave down there. I know because that’s how it was here, and he hated it that she took advantage of them, and then he had it out with her. Grandma said that she didn’t like being caught in the middle, and Sage told her that they weren’t joined at the hip, that she had her own car, that she could go over to Aunt Laura’s house whenever she wanted to. He just didn’t know why he had to put up with her when it was so obvious that she hated his guts.
I have to agree with the old man that Aunt Laura was a problem. She would come over here with her three kids and plop her ass down on the couch and put her nose in her cell phone while the old folks fed everyone while her kids tore the place apart, and then she would finally come to the table and eat before just getting up and leaving. She never helped cook or do the dishes or clean up. I guess she felt that they were guests, and that guest didn’t have to do nothing. When he bitched about it Grandma just tuned him out. When Aunt Laura wasn’t around life here was just fine. They mostly left me alone to play my video games and when I refused to go to school he just gave up which was fine with me until the blowout. Now I have to either listen to him or live with Ashley, and let me tell you that no one is ever going to nominate her for mother of the year.
Ashley:
I can’t take the kid in. I get that he’s my son, but he’s fifteen and has a mind of his own. I live in a fifth wheel and there is hardly enough room for me. Mom seemed capable of handling him until the old bastard stripped a gear and tossed everyone out. I hope Kid listens to him because he will throw the child to the wolves. That asshole is responsible for the way I turned out. He got with Mom when I was thirteen and he started interfering and telling her that I was getting away with too much. I couldn’t stand him and went to live with some people down in the desert who were the parents of one of my friends, and that was okay until her father hit on me and I was forced to move back. The good part was that he worked all the time and was rarely ever home. Mom was dependent on him because she had to stay home to look after my two younger sisters. They didn’t like him either, so he got even by ruining their lives, also.
He tried to buy our love with new cars and other expensive shit. I got pregnant at seventeen and he gave me an acre lot with a piece-of-shit single wide on it and expected me and the baby’s father to make the $250 a month payment saying I would own it all at the end of five years. Then he gave me a swimming pool maintenance business that I didn’t really want and expected me to turn it into some big successful enterprise. I got as much money as I could out of it and then let it drop like a nasty habit. After the baby came Mom told him that they were going to have to pick up the payments on my trailer. Then I got hooked on drugs and my life became a blur for the next fifteen years. Many times I wish that she had never met that abusive bastard because all our lives would have turned out better without him in them.
Kid:
Sage isn’t so bad. When I started living with him and Grandma at age four, I didn’t like him, and I made every effort to show him just how much until he moved over to the other house and didn’t come around much except to eat. He helped with the dishes and bought the groceries and just basically stayed in the background. Mom lives in a fifth wheel up higher on the lot and would come in when he was over here, and they would get in fights that she started, and Grandma would plead with him to just leave. Kicked out of his own house; how pathetic was that?
I felt sorry for him after a while. Anyone could see that he was working his ass off, and that everyone seemed to hate him for it. But somehow time went by, and when I went to middle school he would pick me up every day after school and oftentimes give my friends a ride home. I got to see that he was okay. He would use those times to try to talk to me about my future and about how I looked at life. Like I said, after I started refusing to go to school, he backed away and gave up on me until now. I think I can ride it out. Grandma will come home after she gets enough of Aunt Laura. All I have to do is listen to him until then, and things will go back to normal.
Laura:
He is the biggest asshole on the face of the planet. I don’t know how Mom put up with his shit for thirty years. What a misogynistic prick. A couple of years back when I got him alone, I let him know just what I thought of him, and he told me to go to hell. Then he wouldn’t look at me or talk to me for two years until I finally moved away. He didn’t cause me to move, I was going anyway because that’s what I wanted to do, but I will say that it’s great being away from him. Mom’s here now so I have someone to take the kids to school and prepare the meals and do the laundry and keep the house somewhat clean so I can concentrate on my new job.
I heard him tell Mom when I was back there that just having a job wasn’t enough and that I should do more. Just because he was a workaholic doesn’t mean that I have to be. The truth is he worked that hard because he was stupid and couldn’t figure out a way to get ahead. He had the Midas touch in reverse because everything he came into contact with seemed to turn to shit. He thought that I should be eternally grateful that he bought me a new car; an underpowered, undersized, and slow Suzuki Forenza. I hated that car and I hated the double-wide trailer on their lot that he forced me to pay $400 a month in rent for after I got a job. He always acted like he was some big fucking hero for helping you out when the fact is that he didn’t really help very much at all. Just ask my older sister Amanda.
Amanda:
Yeah, I know that Laura can’t stand him, and it seems that he has gotten to feel the same way about her. I felt the same way as Laura until I moved away, got into some trouble, and started to see that he was only trying to help in the best way he knew how. As for Ashley – she really hated him and feels that he has ruined her life. What Ashley really hated was that I was his favorite and she felt that that was so unfair. He would say that there’s a reason that favorites get to be favorites and that he wasn’t going to apologize for being nice to anyone who was nice to him.
I was ten when Mom and Sage got together. At first, he was a lot of fun and treated her well. Ashley didn’t like him right from the start, but then again, Ashley didn’t like me either. Sage saw Ashley bullying me, and put me in karate, and that pretty much backed Ashley off. I gave him a hard time when I got to high school and went to live with dad for a while. After that, Laura and I went back and forth depending upon who gave us a better deal. I got into drugs and partying in general, and didn’t go to school much. Dad didn’t like the father of my first child so we all went to live with Mom when I was seventeen. I’ll admit that we weren’t much for working, and that relationship ended after two kids, and I went back to Oklahoma for a while. I came back with boyfriend number two and Sage tried to give him a job that didn’t much interest him. After a year we both went back to Oklahoma and split up and I went to prison for a while. That woke me up. Now I can see that no matter how hard both he and Mom tried, I just wasn’t ready for any help and that my choices is what the problem really was. Laura can never admit that she’s wrong, even when she is. I don’t see Mom lasting there with her for very long.
Kid:
Sage loves Aunt Amanda, and I can see that she loves him too. When Grandma and I went to see her in Oklahoma she told me that she could have had it all and now regrets that she didn’t take it. Sage tried to mentor her and set her up in business even accepting that he would have to train and put up with boyfriend number two in order to help her. But he only wanted to drink, and she was into drugs, and they thought that Sage expected too much of them, and there was an ugly argument, and he told them to move on. He tells me it broke his heart and adds that she at least had the decency to move away. Down there she had a change of tune.
Now Sage is telling me that all this dysfunction is a cycle that needs to be broken, and that I’m smart enough to go to college, have a career, and make something of myself. I don’t want to do any of that shit knowing that it will be easier to be a You Tuber and a gamer and that I’ll make plenty of money doing what I love. Aunt Amanda works eighty hours a week at a fast food restaurant and says it’s making her old before her time. She tells me to listen to the old man but I’m not going to fall into the same trap she did. I’m not having any kids, that’s for sure.
Four Months Later
Amanda:
I helped Mom move back to California, and she’s happy to be back. I don’t think that Sage is too thrilled. Sage registered Kid in school and takes him and picks him up every day. So far he hasn’t missed, but I can see that that will change now that Mom is back in charge. Ashley is happy to see Mom again, and Kid seems relieved. As for the others that Sage threw out, Mom will have to see them off site because Sage made her promise not to let them come to their place by telling her that if they ever got back onsite that they would worm their way back in. She and Sage just look old and worn down and resigned to taking care of Kid until he’s eighteen. I can see their future that they don’t want to look at. Kid isn’t going to go anywhere unless they throw him out.
Ashley and Sage mostly avoid each other. He says he’s happy that she pays her rent and she says that $500 a month is too high even though it includes utilities and trash removal and rides to wherever she wants to go; and she’s invited to supper whenever she wants to attend. Her presence in the main house makes Sage nervous, and I understand why. Ashley is like a human ticking time bomb, and no one ever knows what might set her off. I can tell that Sage will soon retreat to the other house. He’s seventy-two now with four heart stents and doesn’t need the drama. An uneasy alliance is what I would call their association, and for all their sakes I hope it continues to work.
Laura:
Mom bailed on me. Amanda showed up one day while I was at work, and the kids were at school, and they just loaded up and fled. Mom called from the road to tell me. I need her Social Security to make it and now I don’t have it. How could she do this to me? The kids had no idea what was going on. Amanda got on the phone, and we had it out. Fucking bitch telling me that Mom was tired of me expecting her to do all the house work. I work! Jesus, do I have to do everything myself?
I know that bastard is behind it. Probably got tired of taking care of Kid. Probably didn’t want to continue on with the cooking. He only thinks of himself, the asshole. What about me? What am I going to do now?
Kid:
It wasn’t so bad living with Sage. He’s a good cook, and as long as I go to school, he doesn’t give me any grief. But school is boring. The first semester I got five A’s and a B, and he told me I should talk to the teacher that gave me the B and see if there was anything I could do to pull it up to an A. Jesus Christ! Nothing is ever good enough for that guy. Then this past semester I got four B’s and two C’s, and he acted like I was falling off the edge of the earth. I told him I didn’t care about my grades, and he said that the only problem with that was that the rest of the world did. He said it would lower my prospects for a good college, and he just couldn’t see that if I was capable of getting A’s then why would I ever settle for B’s and C’s? He admitted that he never did as well in school as I’m doing and that he had tried really hard, so he couldn’t understand why I wasn’t willing to put in a little more effort. Like I said, school is boring and I don’t care about my grades.
Now that Grandma’s back, and Mom will be coming around more often, I suspect that he’ll go back over to the other house again. I don’t dislike the guy, it’s just that I don’t want to be anything like him – always busting his ass and not getting anywhere. This place is a dump, and it’s the best he could do. Over seventy years old, and this is it. It’s pathetic.
Grandma:
I missed him and I missed Ashley and Kid. Laura treated me like the hired help with the sad irony being that I wasn’t paid anything and she pounced on my Social Security payment the moment I got it. The grandkids treated me like a maid and they kept me busy constantly picking up after them. I had to work miracles to buy groceries and put meals on the table, and they all acted like they were doing me a favor just to sit down and eat them. Amanda stepped in and called him. He said I could do whatever I wanted to: come, go, stay, leave – just don’t expect him to get too torn up by any of it. Laura’s my daughter, and I know that she’s dealt him dirt, but what can I do about it?
Kid’s attitude really hasn’t changed much. He goes to school because he’s afraid of winding up in a foster home. I don’t know how Sage managed to get him registered this year; not being blood kin and all. Both of them had very similar childhoods, so I guess that they understand each other. The passion left our relationship years ago but I think he’s a good man for the most part, and I’m not taking the responsibility for Kid away from him. Anyway, it’s good to be home. I had no idea how much I would miss this place.
Ashley:
I’m so fucking glad Mom is back. I lost count of how many times I had to hold my tongue when he was telling Kid how it was going to be. He doesn’t get parenting at all. He says that he isn’t buying all the bullshit the psychologists are selling: everyone gets a trophy, there’s no winners or losers, just competitors, nobody should ever feel bad about themselves. He pays Kid $25 for every A and nothing for a B. Christ! It’s all or nothing with this guy. I can see now why my life got so fucked up. That asshole just needs to take a chill pill.
My fifth wheel is falling in around my ears, and all he’ll do is fix what’s absolutely necessary saying he’s only going to do for me what he would do for any other tenant. I’m sorry, but I think I deserve a little bit more than that. He’s always short changed me, and I’m afraid he’ll do the same with Kid. Mom won’t let him throw my son out, I know that much. Kid treats me like shit, and Sage doesn’t do a goddamned thing about it. He tells me that if I don’t like it then I can stay out of “their” house. This is Mom’s house, not his, I tell him. Then he says that they have equal shares as tenants in common, and that I have none. He’s a bully I tell you, a real first class bullying dickhead.
Sage:
Her two daughters are so full of shit that it’s coming out of their ears. I miss Amanda and wish she lived closer by, but like I say, at least she had the decency to move far enough away. I’m happy her mother came back because I still love the woman and didn’t like how she was treated out there, even though I could see it coming from a mile away. But she’s hard-headed and has to find things out for herself. She says that she won’t interfere with Kid, but I don’t believe it, so we’ll see about that. Concerning Laura; I could hate her, but I could also hate a lot of other people, but to seriously hate anyone is hard work, and they just aren’t worth the effort.
The good news is that I held off killing myself because I couldn’t name Kid as the sole beneficiary on the life insurance policy and I wouldn’t dream of assigning any of her daughters as a trustee. He would have never seen the money. I had to do some fancy driving on some National Park back roads to mule a few loads of high grade up into Utah to get the money to keep the bank at bay. Now that I’m old I’m all but invisible to the rest of the world. Nobody even gave me a second glance. I’m glad that her money is back in the household kitty and I don’t have to take that kind of risk again. So she’s now the trustee that I was looking for because I know that she’ll be fair with Kid. As for Kid; he’s just going to have to figure it out for himself, just like I had to do. His mother and my mother could have been alter egos, so I know what he’s up against. If anything, his intelligence will be his saving grace. He’ll make mistakes and he’ll take his lumps, but I can only hope and pray that he’ll prevail in the end. In my world that’s known as winning ugly.
John C. Krieg is a retired landscape architect and land planner who formerly practiced in Arizona, California, and Nevada. He is also retired as an International Society of Arboriculture (ISA) certified arborist and currently holds seven active categories of California state contracting licenses, including the highest category of Class A General Engineering. He has written a college textbook entitled Desert Landscape Architecture (1999, CRC Press). In conjunction with filmmaker/photographer Charles Sappington, Mr. Krieg has completed a two-part documentary film entitled Landscape Architecture: The Next Generation (2010). In some underground circles John is considered a master grower of marijuana and holds as a lifelong goal the desire to see marijuana federally legalized. Nothing else will do. To that end he published two books in 2022 entitled: Marijuana Tales and California Crazies: The Former Lives and Deaths of Outlaw Pot Farmers. John’s most recent collection of bios and reviews is: Lines & Lyrics: Glimpses of the Writing Life (2019, Adelaide Books). John’s most recent collection of fictional novellas is: Zingers: Five Novellas Blowing Like Dust on the Desert Wind (2020, Anaphora Literary Press). John’s collection of six political and slice-of-life essays is American Turmoil at the Vanguard of the 21st Century (2022).
