Polly Want a Prozac

After my parents separated, my father began seeing a woman named Polly. While I was in New Jersey with my mother they moved into a two bedroom two story townhome. Polly wanted our first impression to be a good one so she decorated a room for me with rainbows and wind socks. Hmm….. Prior to my arrival for my first visit, Polly became very insecure. She was the poster child for why alcohol and insecurity don’t mix. Add in a few pills and you have yourself a serious mind fuck. So one night Polly’s drunk, pissed, insecure and ultimately out of her mind. She decides to pick a fight with my father. He won’t take the bait so she switches gears to the old “you don’t love me so I’ll kill myself” routine and puts her hand through a glass door. That got his attention. She was bleeding all over. My father immediately rushes her to the hospital where they wait for hours to have her hand stitched up.

In the meantime, the neighbors have heard screaming and items being thrown against walls all night. They decide to take a peak and see blood and broken glass all over. Concerned citizens that they are the call the police who also come to inspect the scene. The police are still on the scene when my father returns with a passed out on pain meds Polly who he is carrying from the car when the cops pounce on him. No one can wake her to find out if my father did this. Eventually they believe him and leave.

Skip to my first visit. Dad thought it would be a nice bonding experience for the three of us to drive to San Marcos and stay at Aquarina Springs. On the way he stopped and picked up a six pack of Michelob Light. Polly, having not learned her lesson, proceeded to drink four of the six. By the time we hit San Marcos she was good and ready for a fight. We checked into the hotel and went up to the room. My father told me to go in the bathroom, lock the door and not come out until he told me to. I spent the next hour and a half making all of the little coffee packets. Cleaning the sink with the tiny bar of soap. Counting the tiles on the floor. Laying on the floor ear to cold tile, one eye squinting under the door to see the fight.

At last he had enough and released me from my captivity in the bathroom. We were going to see the tic-tac-toe chickens and swimming pigs and no one was going to spoil the fun. Or so we thought. A walk down the corridor, an elevator ride to the first floor and out the door of the hotel we went. Senior citizens were playing checkers and chess at the tables in front of the hotel. We walked by them smiling. Enjoying the fact that we were at last getting to spend time together after a long separation. That is when we heard it;

“Beee-ullll”

“Jack-a-lynnnn”

“Beee-ullll”

“Jack-a-lynnnn”

Looking up what did we see? Polly on the roof screaming down at me. Other guests began to notice and now the crowd was all abuzz with “there’s a lady on the roof and she says she’s going to jump”. My father sprinted back to the hotel and to the roof. He and a bell hop were able to wrestle her away from the edge and get her safely back in the room. She was told to call her brother to pick her up, pack her things, get out of our room and wait in the lobby for her ride.

Crisis averted my father and I spent a few hours playing. There is an old timey sepia tone photo in my library taken that day. Dad is dressed as an outlaw and me a western bar maiden. Odd I know but I have a feeling I chose the costumes and he simply went along. Upon returning to the hotel we spied Polly sulking in a chair in the lobby. Something was different. Oh yeah, she had beat her face to black and blue with the phone in their room and had been telling anyone who walked by that my father was the culprit. Her brother did pick her up that day. I thought for sure she I would never see her again but alas the next time we met I was crawling through a window of her parent’s beach house because she wouldn’t wake up to answer the door. That however is another story for another day.