The Space Queen

~ Matthew: 1 ~

What you should know about me is that I'm the wonder kid, the cool boy, the first born, the emotionally non-committed, the man's man, the one that is hard to love, the boy you passed by in the school hallways that you were in love with but he never looked your way. I'm the man you see when you are young, who is full of life and promise, flying off to the unknown dark space, ready to write the pen of history. Try to catch me with your words and I swim away from you - you can never capture the beating breath that is my soul.

I am a mother's most beloved son, the extension of a father's pride, the love of many women, and I'm also a murderer.

There... I said it. It feels so freeing to say it! I murdered my little sister!

How could it be that I am so charming, so likable, so looked up to by my siblings and other men growing up, have many women throwing themselves at me, and still be the one I hate the most out of anyone else in the room? All I know is, sometimes, I feel like the most disgusting human to walk the planet. I hate my stinking breath, I hate the way I feel like a wild man trapped in the woods, I hate the anger that is always threatening to break itself out of me, and I hate that sometimes - I feel as if I have forgotten what it is like to be human. It's as if everyone lives around me akin to the secret, while I go around pretending to be like everyone else while feeling very much alone. How could my own mother love me, after all the mental illness I've caused her? Does she ever look into my face and see that all her pain is because of me? If am the cause of the first love of my life having her own life fall apart, then the truth is certain: I am simply a hard person to love.

It turned into an unspoken conversation after a while. June 14, and January 11th, two dates that stayed permanent into the minds of my siblings and mine - the dates of Beth's birth and Beth's death. Two dates dreaded in our household, an event that destroyed a marriage, and lead to even more dark memories. To this day, you might find one of us stuttering when we talk of it. I wasn't there when the paramedics took her out of the house in Virginia on a stretcher to the hospital for her suicide attempt. I wasn't there with Dad when she cut her wrists and was complaining about not being a good enough mother. I didn't see the fear in Dad's face, that he believed he caused her to fall apart, and how he worried about protecting all of us.  Yet, we pretended that everything was fine, while secretly fearing one of her new moods when her psychiatrist decided to change her meds. My father had affairs with many women, sometimes playing with two or three in the pool before taking them back to their houses (where their husbands weren't home) to have his way with them. It was no secret to me that Dad had friends, but it was a surprise to my mother. I saw the way her face fell when I talked of Daddy's "friends" he played with in the pool. Eventually, I learned to not talk about it. I didn't want to cause any more pain to my mother and besides, she loved my Dad with all of her heart.

It's no secret among my siblings - Mom and Dad's marriage is falling apart, and it's because of me.

To tell you how I led to the demise of my entire family, let's start at the beginning.

My mother, Mary McCarthy, lived in an apartment in Yonkers, New York with her three other siblings: Trudi, Joseph, and Lois. Mary was the second oldest, with her older sister Lois getting married first to John Bianchi - my uncle. When they were teens, they both went to Prom Night at the Copacabana in Downton New York City. John had my cousin John, and his older sister Deborah. Then my mom got married next to her teenage sweetheart - my Dad. She was very, very pretty and much loved by all the young men that went to school around her. She could have had her own pick of anyone she wanted, including plenty people with a lot of money, but she only had eyes for my Dad.

Her father, McMahon senior, came from Irish mafia family. It was his father that kept a speakeasy running during the Prohibition where all different mob bosses could get together and have a drink before going back and shooting at each other. He knew from his father how to make jokes and have a good time, though he left the majority of the hotel to his cousins the O'Ryans to lean back on his Catholic faith and prudence during the end of his life. The rest of the family went off to have drinking problems.