Over The Ledge

My father has at last finished his novel. I finished reading it last night. The really fun thing about reading his book is that I recognize so many of the characters. One in particular was almost my stepmother until she went completely nuts. We’re talking about loony bin nuts here. I won’t mention her name but bear with me while I tell you my favorite episode. The three of us, my father, me and Nutso, packed up for a weekend at Aquarina Springs in San Marcos. It is no longer there but if you visited it as a child you remember it well. There was the old west depot with the dusty saloon that housed the tic-tac-toe playing chickens. You would put a quarter in the slot then push the square you wanted for your X on and the chicken would scratch a square in response. I was much too young to suffer the humiliation that should come from losing to a chicken so this was one of my favorite games. You could also dress up in old west style clothes and take a sepia tone photo next to the long bar. I have one of these to this day that shows my father smiling in a confederate soldier uniform with me sitting on a saddle mounted on a saw horse next to him in bar maid garb, my right hand pointing a small pistol to the sky. In addition to the wonders of the old west there was Ralph the swimming pig and glass bottom boats. Ah, the fun.

So we get to Aquarina Springs and I am busting a gut to get to the chicken. First we check into the hotel and that is when all hell broke loose. I was sent to the bathroom and told not to come out until my father told me. I could hear them arguing so I laid my cheek against the cold tile and tried peeking beneath the door. No going. The room had carpet that elevated over the tile bathroom floor. I made an individual pot of coffee since really there isn’t much else to do sitting in a bathroom by oneself. At last my father opened the door and said let’s go glaring at Nutso sitting on the bed crying.

My father and I exited the building hand in hand when we heard our names being called. We turned around to see if it was someone behind us. No, no one there, but why is everyone looking up? Leaning over the ledge yelling our names was Nutso telling us to look so we could see her jump. My father sprinted back into the hotel as I stood there contemplating if I had enough quarters to get in a couple of mean games of tic-tac-toe before anyone noticed I was gone. I ended up waiting in the lobby watching hotel staff run around in a panic. It was my father who pulled her off of the ledge and dragged her straight back to our room to call someone to pick her up. This was not the beginning of the end but the end of the end. It was but one episode in a long line of insanity that my father had put up with for months. We didn’t wait to see her off but she was still waiting for her ride when we returned. There she was in the lobby with a big old shiner covering one eye that she was telling anyone who would listen my father had given her. He didn’t. She gave it to herself with the handset of the phone in the room. At least this time the police didn’t think he had murdered her but that is another story for another time.