smerdyakov
03-15-2012, 02:10 AM
Greg got his good looks from his mother and his irresoluteness, broodiness from his Dad. He didn’t know where the rest of it came from. If truth be known, his Mother’s character was the polar opposite to his Dad’s character. She was quick, decisive, hard-working, practical, and also good at dealing with people. She had a somewhat narrow frame of seeing things, because mainly she was uneducated and left school when she was 12 – this wasn’t out of choice. Because her own mother ran away with someone else and she had to look after 6 younger brothers and sisters herself as her own Dad was out working all day and frequently spent most of the night in the pub - but the upside of this, as far as there is an upside to this, was that she didn’t dally or ponder too much, but rather dived straight in. She was resolute, and she wasn’t afraid of things. She took things in her stride and was continually optimistic and future oriented; she was a doer.
The Dad, Greg’s Dad, well, he was a dead weight on the whole family. And as the kids grew up, he became more and more of a disappointment and a failure. That’s what he was actually, he was a failure. Unlike the Mother, the Dad was lazy, self interested, cowardly, uncaring, cold - lacking in compassion for anyone really, quick-tempered, mean with money. He was sadistic even. Sometimes he would hurt his own children, pinch them or wrestle with them, and their yelps of pain would elicit laughter from him, then all of a sudden he would stop as if he had woken from a dream, or the mother would rush in (whichever came first) and scream to him “what are you doing for God’s sake?” taking the crying child in her arms. “I was only playing!” he would say. He took his wife’s effort and love for him and pissed all over it. He kicked it to the ground, took out his thingy and urinated on it. He himself came from some wealth and since a young age had a sneering air of self entitlement about him.
Later, when they were all grown up, Greg would sit there some mornings at the kitchen table after coming home from drinking all night or gallivanting, his mother sitting opposite, fixing herself in the mirror getting ready for work or if it was the weekends she would be busy making him a fry.“I told him,” she would say, “I told him when I had the first of ye –he was six months old. I said, I wasn’t puttin’ up with it…I didn’t want a life of that. Every-night of the first year of our marriage I was left there on my own. He would come in at 4 or 5 in the morning. Then he would stay in bed all day and get up again without a word. Drink was his wife and everything else under the sun to him, not me,” --she looked up from her mirror, hair tongs held in her right hand, dragging on a cigarette with the other hand, her eyes squinting momentarily as she took a long pull on the cigarette--”I told him we needed to talk. I went down to the pub to talk to him. I said to him I’m leaving and I’m taking my son with me. I’m not living like this, I said, you wiping your feet all over me. He told me to lower my voice. I said to him I couldn’t give a **** who’s listening. He said he would take me to court over him. I said, you go to your Daddy and Mammy and your money and you take me to court but you won’t take this child from me. And he started to cry. He was crying. He said he’d change, and that he was sorry. But after a few months, things went back to the way they were.”
Greg wondered how she had ever married him, “Did you not see signs back then?” he would ask her.
“No, he was different then.”
The Dad, Greg’s Dad, well, he was a dead weight on the whole family. And as the kids grew up, he became more and more of a disappointment and a failure. That’s what he was actually, he was a failure. Unlike the Mother, the Dad was lazy, self interested, cowardly, uncaring, cold - lacking in compassion for anyone really, quick-tempered, mean with money. He was sadistic even. Sometimes he would hurt his own children, pinch them or wrestle with them, and their yelps of pain would elicit laughter from him, then all of a sudden he would stop as if he had woken from a dream, or the mother would rush in (whichever came first) and scream to him “what are you doing for God’s sake?” taking the crying child in her arms. “I was only playing!” he would say. He took his wife’s effort and love for him and pissed all over it. He kicked it to the ground, took out his thingy and urinated on it. He himself came from some wealth and since a young age had a sneering air of self entitlement about him.
Later, when they were all grown up, Greg would sit there some mornings at the kitchen table after coming home from drinking all night or gallivanting, his mother sitting opposite, fixing herself in the mirror getting ready for work or if it was the weekends she would be busy making him a fry.“I told him,” she would say, “I told him when I had the first of ye –he was six months old. I said, I wasn’t puttin’ up with it…I didn’t want a life of that. Every-night of the first year of our marriage I was left there on my own. He would come in at 4 or 5 in the morning. Then he would stay in bed all day and get up again without a word. Drink was his wife and everything else under the sun to him, not me,” --she looked up from her mirror, hair tongs held in her right hand, dragging on a cigarette with the other hand, her eyes squinting momentarily as she took a long pull on the cigarette--”I told him we needed to talk. I went down to the pub to talk to him. I said to him I’m leaving and I’m taking my son with me. I’m not living like this, I said, you wiping your feet all over me. He told me to lower my voice. I said to him I couldn’t give a **** who’s listening. He said he would take me to court over him. I said, you go to your Daddy and Mammy and your money and you take me to court but you won’t take this child from me. And he started to cry. He was crying. He said he’d change, and that he was sorry. But after a few months, things went back to the way they were.”
Greg wondered how she had ever married him, “Did you not see signs back then?” he would ask her.
“No, he was different then.”