Adultery

One of those parties for Dad's career happened early on in 1955. There was top brass present, so the party stayed in the formal living room, and didn't migrate to the Sun Porch. The Sun porch was reserved for casual affairs.

I had trouble sleeping because of the noise.

OK, it wasn't only the noise. I hadn't mentioned it before, because it was such a minor thing, but I have to bring it up now. My parents put a weight driven clock in my room with an owl face that had eyes that looked right and left with each second.

I can't begin to describe how freaky that clock was. I've looked all over the place for a picture that comes close to depicting the horror of it, but found nothing that even approximates it. You're lying in bed and you hear tock tock tock tock tock tock tock tock tock and you look up tock tock tock tock and you see tock tock two eyes tock tock looking tock right looking tock left looking tock right looking tock left looking tock right looking tock left looking tock right looking tock left AND IT'S TOO FREAKY FOR WORDS IN ANY LANGUAGE. I begged them to get it out of my room and they laughed at how cute I was.

So I got up and got out of that room and away from the horrid freaky clock, and went in to the living room looking for someone who would console me.

No one was conscious. There were army officers all over the place, passed out. Including my Father. But my Mother was not there. If she had been, I probably would have shook her to wake her up, because when it came to Mom I could be a hard ass. Being raped regularly by someone can do that to you. Oh, she wants to sleep, does she? Well, she screws me, I'm going to screw her.

But she wasn't there. Where could she be? I went back into the hall, and put my ear up to the door of the master bedroom. There was laughing. There was giggling. It was my Mother's voice and a man's voice, and the man was not my Father. And then there was the pounding and the moaning that I recognized as the sound that meant "Do not open this door or you will get the beating of your life."

Stupid stupid owl clock.