Who’s Alpha Now

      Summer was coming and I was glad to for the warmer weather and the added income from opportunities that my neighbors would give me by paying me to take care of their lawns. I wasn’t growing like a weed but grown I had. Since Seventh grade I grew five inches in height and put on thirty-five pounds of muscle. My mother and my future stepfather were still dating. They made such a handsome couple. The both look very modish, which back in the day, was a term for a groovy looking modern couple. However, like many couples they had their share of problems. They broke off for a bit, and my mother started to date a few other guys. I was not happy about this for many reasons. The biggest reason was that I had grown attached to Jake.

      It wasn’t so much that Jake and I developed a close relationship, I think he was uncomfortable that he was only eleven years older than me and this meant that I was too old to be at an age to be adopted as son material.

      Perhaps he felt that I was more like a younger brother. My brother James was more towards an age of which it was a bit more conceivable that he could be young enough to be son material for Jake. Regardless I had grown attached to him for two or three reasons.

      The first reason, I guess that on some level I craved to have a father figure. As I have already mentioned, at the time my father really did not show much desire to take advantage of his visitation rights. When he did visit, I hungered for mentoring so badly, I tried to engage him for advice on how I could best thrive in this world. 

      I was disappointed by his response, or perhaps I should say his lack of response.

      Instead of taking me aside and teaching me all of the secrets of the Universe that I imagined fathers tell their sons; he told me that that was something he had to learn on his own and therefore I would have to learn about life on my own. My father’s obvious disregard for us caused my sister and especially my younger brother James to start acting out in bad ways towards Jake. They both would at times get angry when Jake would discipline us.

      They would yell out the usual, “Your not my Dad” mantra that most kids fall to when a man, no matter how loving tries to take over the previous father’s position. I use to feel very badly for Jake, whenever my sister or brother would pull that shit. I could tell that Jake would get mad, but it seemed to hurt his feelings even more. I think the biggest reason why Jake and my mother broke off their relationship, was because my siblings had trouble-accepting Jake as a replacement of my father.

      Secondly, I felt empathy and sympathy for Jake. Even though I was still a child, I felt it took a lot for a young guy to take on a ready-made family. I felt grateful towards him for helping to make my mother’s life easier.

      Thirdly, I felt that Jake really loved my mother and that he wanted to share a life together with her.

      As I said, now that Jake and she were taking a rest from each other, my mother started to casually date other men. Since I was becoming an increasingly sexual being, I was very suspicious of men in general with regards to my mother. My mother was by many people’s standards a very beautiful woman, and I started to notice a lot of men staring at her or trying to flirt with her. A few times when I helped her with shopping I would catch some man staring at her. I would stand next to my mother and stare back. I would continue to stare until the man showing interest in my mother would get uncomfortable and leave the area. I figured only Jake had a right to look at my mother that way.

      She was dating this one guy who looked like a much stockier version of the character Jared on the TV show “Big Valley”. He was very handsome guy about thirty-five years old, with a barrel chest and big forearms. 

      “Jared” seemed nice enough on the surface, but I thought he was a bit too smooth. I sensed that his intentions towards my mother were not honorable. Admittedly, I may have felt that way because of my loyalty towards Jake. Another reason I felt distrustful of him was because a few times I caught him looking at me askance. Those several times I caught him looking at me. He would often be giving me that sizing me up look that I experienced so many times, especially from the school bullies.

      He went out of his way to mention that he noticed that I was strongly built. He reminded me of Mr. Dano.

      These similarities made me very uneasy, I got the feeling that he was building me up to set me up, and then take me down.

Once he started to give me a verbal resume’ of his past and present physical exploits. His regaling me of all his achievements made both my mother and me very uncomfortable.

We were both embarrassed for him. My mother had taught me that bragging was a sign of people who were bullies or insecure people. Jared again decided to build me up.

      Hey, he said, “You look like you’re as strong as a man Lazarus.”

      Since I was only thirteen and a half and weighed only a hundred and thirty-five pounds, I doubted his sincerity, “Give me a break, I thought.

Jared was a full-grown man that weighed about two hundred pounds.

      Jared said, “Hey lets arm wrestle!”

He pulls one of the end tables set next to the chair he was sitting in around and places it in front of him.

He plops his bowling pin forearm on the table and his meaty hand waving around. I was looking at this guy and then my mother in disbelief. I was muscular but not big at all. By today’s standards I was actually skinny.

      “Come on, Jared said, your big enough, don’t be afraid.”

      Even though I was feeling certain anxiety I said, “I’m not afraid, I said, I just don’t see the point.”

      He said, “I’m just curious to see how strong you are, I don’t expect you to beat me, it’s just for fun.”

I was looking over at my mother, and she had an indecipherable look on her face.

      She said, “Go ahead.”

      I sensed that this contest would set the tone on how he would treat my mother and I from that moment after.

      I felt that he was acting like a red assed primate anxious to shake branches and just chomping at the bit to give a display of power. He wanted to show me that he was Alpha and that it was his right to have access to my mother.

      The only thing in the way of this blustering blowhard’s desire to impress the female he wanted to dally with was her maturing juvenile son that needed to be shown his place in the pack. I could tell he thought that he was just the man to do it.

      Jared and I positioned ourselves for the contest. My skinny arms looked ridiculous next to his bowling pins. His forearms were knotted with muscle. Back east there is very little technique in arm wrestling. You gripped each other’s hands in a firm grip. You did not use your body weight. Nor do you pull the person in towards you, and you certainly don’t do both. Doing either of these things was considered cheating. It was mostly speed, strength and endurance. It was a tough match, but I beat him.

      The look of astonishment on his and my mother’s face was complete.

      He thought his defeat was a fluke so he demanded two out of three and then tried with his left hand. By the time we were through, he was pretty put out. It was the last time I set eyes on him. My mother and Jared never dated again.

      I was glad of this fact and glad that she would be picking up with Jake once again. However, It was shortly after my victory over Jared and shortly before Jake would be coming back around that I got a disturbing and sad insight into the world of single divorced women with children.

      I got a glimpse of the hard choices that many of these women feel that they are forced to make.

      I found out that Jake and my mother had broken up, because of many of his disturbing personality traits. As much as he and my real father hated each other, they were more alike than not.

      Both were incredibly fastidious and organized, they could find anything they own in the house in total darkness. Both or them were fiercely domineering and jealous of any male attentions that my mother was often use to getting. Both of them were essentially emotionally unavailable to my mother; my real father because he was unwilling to be and Jake because he was unable to express himself in any such manner.

      My real dad did not care to make time for his kids, but preferred instead to spend all his spare time partying and chasing women with his buddies. 

      Jake spent so much time pursuing his dream of wealth and business acumen that he did not care to spend any time with us that he felt could have been used to increase his competence in the business world.

      While my real father was a socially gregarious man, Jake instead was uncomfortable in social situations that were outside of the business world and unlike my dad he was for the most part quiet, uncomfortable and intense in most social situations.

      Both of them had a very bad temper and neither of them were very nurturing to us or my mother. Both of them were narcissists; my father is a major one to his core and Jake is a low level narcissist.

      The only positive difference between Jake and my real father is that Jake did not run around with other women… he believe in and practice marital fidelity, while my father is both unable and unwilling to give monogamy a try.

      My mother voiced her concerns and disappointment about Jake to me. She also mentioned that she was attracted to Jake and even loved him, but she once again voiced that he had a problem temper and he was too machismo.

      She acknowledged that being married to him and with both of them pooling their financial resources, life for all of us would be easier.

      She asked me point blank if she should marry him. I was uneasy that she would and fearful that she would not. I was concerned about my mother’s current and future happiness and security.

      She would base her decision on what we wanted and true to the nature of guilty children we based our opinions on what we felt would be best for our mother and what she really wanted.

      Basically Lynn and I told our mother to follow her heart for what she wanted.

We did this with great expectations and trepidations.

      On another level it bothered me to realize with certainty that my mom probably would have never married Jake if She had not been under financial stress.

      It was at that moment that no matter what, I would never be involved in a relationship where a woman would be in such a situation as to taint or muddy her mind as to whether she would be with me or not.

      I believe it was on that fateful day that my mother, regardless of her true and noble feelings for Jake made the choice for security, comfort and safety of the known than face the angst and loneliness of the unknown. I have often felt that for the much of her life regret warred with the love and admiration she felt for the man she said yes to that week.

      Over the years the saying that “Every form of refuge has its price” would haunt me time and again.