by Liz Zuercher
Growing up on an Illinois farm with alcoholic parents I
learned two things. First, the
land is everything, the source of your security, and you do whatever is
necessary to keep it. Second,
never count on a man to take care of you.
It will leave you feeling trapped, bitter and disappointed.
The first lesson was a given. Real estate was solid.
It would always be there for you, if you worked hard to preserve it.
The second lesson was a little harder for me to learn than
the first one, even though my parents had illustrated this concept pretty
well. I figured once I left home
and could chart my own destiny, I’d make better decisions than my mother
had. But I hadn’t accounted for
what love does to a girl, starting with Billy.
I was eighteen, newly graduated from high school and in love
with Billy Millsap, when he told me he was leaving town to find his fortune in
Chicago. That’s the way he said
it.
“Cassie, babe, I can’t get anywhere in this podunk
town. I’m gonna find my fortune in
Chicago,” he said.
“What are you going to live on, Billy?” I asked, ever the
practical one.
“I’ve got some money saved up, and I’ll get a job doing
something,” he said, a faraway look glowing in his green eyes.
God, he was good-looking. I couldn’t think straight when I looked into Billy’s
eyes. He was a farm boy, who
couldn’t stand farming. He didn’t
like getting his hands dirty, and to be a farmer you have to appreciate soil. He thought he was better than that,
made for more important things, and he was going to find them in the big
city.
“I want to be in a place where there are possibilities. There are no possibilities here for a
guy like me. I know I’m meant to
do something important, Cass. And
if I stay here I’ll never be able to realize my potential.”
Billy talked like that all the time. He talked about potential and realizing
it and taking the bull by the horns and venturing forth into the world beyond
Central Illinois. He wanted
adventure. He wanted to expand his
horizons. And he wanted me to come
with him. Between his sparkling
eyes, his golden tan, tight muscular body, his kiss and his seductive words, I
was sold. Besides, I’d wanted to
get away from home for years.
Things had gone from bad to worse at my house, so when Billy
said, “Come with me Cassie,” I leaped off that cliff. To my way of thinking, I was at the edge of an abyss and
there was another ledge just within jumping range, if I got a little head
start. And there was beautiful
Billy on the other ledge holding out his arms, ready to catch me, urging me to
jump. Behind me, no one was paying
attention. My parents were both in
a drunken fog, going through the motions of life, and my sister was a space
cadet who flew under the radar, staying out of everyone’s way, sleeping with
every farm boy in a twenty-mile radius.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see her fly the coop soon, too. So I decided to jump toward Billy and
his shiny dream of adventure and possibilities.
We arranged to leave early on a Wednesday afternoon in July,
when both our fathers would be out in the fields. We figured it would be easier to slip out of the house
then. And we kept it a secret so
no one could talk us out of it.
His folks might have tried to do that. I figured mine would shrug their shoulders and say, “Don’t let
the door hit you in the ass on the way out.” At least my father would say that. I expected more of my mother. I thought she would be upset, maybe even shed a tear, but I
was wrong. The mistake I made was
in not just leaving a note for her.
I decided to tell her I was leaving and wasn’t coming back. I don’t know why I did that. Maybe I wanted to think someone
actually cared about me and what I was doing. I should have known better.
I sobbed most of the way to Chicago. Billy tried to console me with his “our
dream is coming true now” talk, but already I was wondering if I’d done the
right thing. I knew it was good
for me to leave home. There was
nothing for me there. But I felt
guilty, leaving my mother in that situation. Still, I wasn’t the one who was supposed to be the
caretaker, was I? The young girl
was not the one who was meant to make the home environment safe. That was the parents’ responsibility. It was all backward at my house. I could see that. I thought I was the one who was supposed
to keep my mother safe, be the buffer between my father and mother. I tried to protect her from him. But I couldn’t do it any more. All the way to Chicago I kept saying
over and over, “I’m sorry Mom. I’m
so sorry.”
“She’s the one who should be sorry,” Billy said
finally. He must have had his fill
of my guilt trip. “She and your
father. They should be sorry about
how they treated you. It’s not
your fault.”
“But what will she do without me?” I asked.
“She’ll get along,” he said. “She’ll have to figure it out for herself.”
He was right, of course. Still, I worried about whether she’d survive. I didn’t worry about Carolyn. Even spacey Carolyn had enough sense to
know a bad situation when she saw it and opt out. My mother, on the other hand, was too deeply mired in it to
be able to see a way out. To me,
it didn’t even seem like she wanted to be free of it. Could she possibly still love my father after all he’d put
her through? And what about
him? Did he give two hoots about
her, or Carolyn or me? It sure
didn’t seem that way.
We drove the rest of the way to Chicago to the sound of Rock
of Chicago on WLS radio. Country
was king in Colfax. We didn’t
listen to rock music much. But the
heavy beat coming from the car radio thumped in my chest, making me feel even
more anxious about what I was doing.
At the same time it awakened a new animal in me, and I started to feel
like I was finally beginning to run free.
The sense of oppression I had lived with for most of my life started to
fall away, like ice calving from a glacier, cracking then sliding into the cold
waters below. The closer we got to
Chicago, the more I felt my old life and its limitations fall away from me, and
I started to look forward to my new life with Billy.
My rose colored glasses were firmly in place by the time we
caught view of the Chicago skyline.
“Chariots of Fire” played on the radio and I imagined myself running
with abandon on the shore of Lake Michigan, fresh lake water lapping the shore
with a gentle whoosh, the famous Chicago wind blowing through my hair. What a romantic I was back then. I thought Billy and I were forever,
that from then on everything in my life would be a glorious adventure and that
I’d left all my troubles behind me in Colfax. I was so naïve.
We moved in with Billy’s friend, Joe, who had a place on the
north side of the city in an area of old brown stone houses converted to
apartments. We had to walk up
three flights of narrow wooden stairs to get to the apartment. The risers creaked and groaned with
each footstep, and I often wondered if one of them would give way, trapping my
foot in jaws of rotted wood. Or I
envisioned the rickety railing collapsing, catapulting me headlong down the stairwell. But none of that ever happened, and in
fact, I came to appreciate the noisy stairs, because they signaled Billy’s
arrival on nights I sat up late waiting for him.
Those nights reminded me of the ones I spent waiting up with
my mother for my father to come home.
The only difference was that I drank Diet Pepsi instead of Coke and
there was no rum in my glass.
There was also no cigarette threatening to start a fire, because I had
vowed never to be like my mother, never to drink and never to smoke. I was determined to make something of
myself, not be dependent on the whims of some man for my well-being. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Billy and I were happy in Chicago. He found a job selling building supplies, something that
suited him to a T. His smooth
charm and shining good looks eased his way with the customers and his company’s
management alike. Everybody loved
Billy. The only bad part about
Billy’s job was that he had a territory, and that meant he had to travel a lot,
all over the states of Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Wisconsin and Michigan. I quickly discovered that I was more on
my own than I had thought I would be.
But I didn’t mind, as long as Billy came home to me when he said he would. I didn’t like surprises much, even
then. My experience with surprises
to that point had not been good, so I liked to have a routine and I liked it to
stay that way.
I got a job, too.
I was hired by Marshall Field’s to sell house wares. That included dishes and cookware and
linens and small appliances. And I
found out I was good at it. You’d
think such a young girl wouldn’t be believable in the house wares department,
that the smart corporate wives who shopped at Marshall Field’s wouldn’t take
much stock in what I said. But I
discovered I had a way of making them feel comfortable, like they were talking
to their sisters or their daughters, and I made it a point to learn all I could
about what I was selling so my information was always correct. People respect that level of
preparation. But the most
important thing about me as a sales clerk was that I listened to what the
customer said. I listened
carefully to them so I knew exactly what they were looking for, and with my
knowledge of the inventory I could almost always come up with the precise item
my customer needed. I really
enjoyed making the customer happy, and I built up a clientele who came back
again and again to buy from me.
Management liked that. They
liked me, and within a year I had risen from clerk to assistant department
manager. Life was good.
After a while, Joe moved in with his girlfriend and left the
apartment to Billy and me. I used
my discount at Marshall Field’s to get some great decorator items that spruced
up our thrift store furniture. We
had a home together, just the way we’d dreamed. The tree lined streets of our neighborhood welcomed us every
day as we came home from our jobs, and the aroma of baking bread from the
bakery a block away woke us in the mornings. We could walk to the lake and ride our bicycles through
Lincoln Park. Billy loved the
Cubs, so we got bleacher seats in Wrigley Field whenever we could.
The only wrinkle in my smooth Chicago life was Billy’s
continuing search for adventure. I
had thought our escape to Chicago together and our life there would be the
adventure, but for Billy it was only the beginning. As my Grandma Elsa would have said, “That boy has itchy
feet.” She also would have said,
“If you gave him the world and a fence around it, he’d still want a slice off
the moon.” And Billy certainly did
want a slice off the moon. Grandma
Elsa never knew Billy, but she must have known someone just like him, because
her sayings described him perfectly.
Billy got bored easily. He
was restless and needed to push the envelope of our lives. I, on the other hand, wanted
consistency. That difference
between us began to spell the death knell of our relationship, almost before it
even really got started.
The final straw came on my nineteenth birthday as I waited
for him to come home and take me to dinner, like we’d planned. I sat there listening for the creak of
the stairs until midnight, when I finally fell asleep on the sofa, tears
forming a crust on my eyes. It wasn't the first time, but it would be the last.
The next day, with still no sign of Billy, I gave my
two-week notice at Marshall Field’s.
I was done. When Billy
rolled in two days later, acting like nothing was wrong, not even apologizing
for missing my birthday, I kept my plans to myself. I knew he’d try to sweet talk me out of leaving, and I
didn’t want to take the chance I’d give in the way my mother always did.
Three weeks after my birthday, while Billy was out selling
drywall in Iowa, I wrote him a goodbye note and left it on the kitchen table
with my apartment keys. With all
my belongings packed in one small blue suitcase, I took the bus to Los
Angeles. Why Los Angeles? Partly it was because Los Angeles
sounded glamorous and as a child I dreamed of being a movie actress. But mostly I thought California would
be as far away from Illinois as I could get. I didn’t want anyone coming after me, and I didn’t want to be
close enough to give up on myself easily and go home. It was time for me to have my own adventure.
