Here we go again. Another wild memory from my teenage years. And this one was never something I would have ever imagined. I will say that in Las Vegas in the early 1970’s anything can happen.
And I do mean anything.
So, my mom and I have just relocated to our new trailer park, and life seemed to be returning to normal for me. Well, that was how I was feeling at this time. And I was happy again, which was very important for me.
Then one morning I went into the kitchen after waking up to see my mom sitting at the dining table with a bandage covering her head.
I asked, “What the hell happened to you,” with a surprised look on my teenage face.
She said, “I was in a fight.”
“What do you mean in a fight,” I replied.
She said, “I was out with my boyfriend at a bar and got into a fight.”
“With him?” I asked.
“No,” she said.
As I leaned against the kitchen counter my mom began to explain what happened.
She told me that her and her boyfriend were at a bar on Fremont Street when she was attacked from behind by her boyfriend’s wife.
I was very confused. I blurted out loud, “Wife!”
This is when I learned that her boyfriend was still married and that his wife had been tracking him around Las Vegas.
And his wife found out about my mom being his girlfriend.
So, his wife came up from behind my mom quickly and grabbed my mom by the hair. And from what the bandage was covering, it must have been a big handful of hair. I did not know the extent of the injury at this moment.
My mom explained that she pulled my mom backwards off the high back bar chair where she then fell to the floor and the two of them began a female fist fight in the middle of a crowded bar, otherwise known as a “cat fight”.
And from the description of the fight, it sounded brutal.
My mom described a lot of punching to the face and body, kicking at the legs, scratching at any exposed skin, and boob grabbing and pulling.
Hell, my fight in the desert was nothing like what was being described to me. It sounded like a fight you would see in a western fight scene on TV from the 1960’s, only more intense and with women.
But I do think I was impressed hearing about my mom’s fighting abilities.
And she told me they were also throwing glasses with drinks in them at each other as they ran around the bar chasing each other.
It must have been one hell of a show for everyone in the bar that night.
When my mom took the bandage off her head there was this area where there was no hair. It looked bad. There was still some blood showing on her skin, maybe it was her skull.
I gasped and said, “Where’s your hair?”
My mom replied, “It was in her fist when I decked her.”
I had no response for several minutes. I just kept thinking that my mom decked someone.
And then I said, “Your boyfriend is married! What the hell are you doing with a married man?”
She answered with an explanation, “He came with me to get you when you ran away to Beverly Hills. We have been together for a while now. I met him at the christening party where you cooked the pig.”
I now knew who he was. I did like him. He was always nice to me whenever I met him. I did not know he was my mom’s boyfriend.
But again, more secrets.
This meant that my mom had been dating him for a long time. Wow! I thought my life was challenging. I now realized that her life was just as challenging but with more adult issues.
When our conversation ended, I went back to my room still in a bit of shock. While sitting on my bed listening to some music I wondered if being an adult meant that life became even more complicated than when you were a teenager dealing with teenage issues.
I hoped not. I just wanted to grow up to become a normal adult.
And then I thought about her saying she met him at the christening party. She was still married at that time to stepdad number one, the one who took advantage of me.
I then silently whispered to myself, “Oh shit!”
There is more to her story than I realized. I decided that I was not going to ask her about this since it could be deeper than I knew of or suspected. And I then decided that I did not want to know, ever.
I then wondered if maybe she was also escaping with me to Florida because she needed to hide from her deeds.
My mom was now someone I did not know. She was my mom, but who else was she. Was there a hidden life that she lived that no one could know about.
And at her job at the Desert Inn Hotel, were there also hidden secrets? I knew I could not ask.
I did begin to feel that she had been hiding me from her other life to maybe shield me from it. She had connections in Las Vegas that maybe I needed to be hidden from. My mom knew that I needed to be protected.
And I was…
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