Uncle Raymond (Who's Yer Daddy?)

I've covered this ground before. My Mom and biological father split when I was too young to remember, she married my Dad shortly after and they were married for twenty or so years. Completing this saga would be the telling of the story of Uncle Raymond, my third dad.

I was a senior in college, living in the squalor of the fraternity house, trying hard to get my grades back on track and hoping my money would hold out long enough for me to graduate. Mom and Dad had divorced, it was ugly, but could have been worse. Dad went through a mid-life crisis, buying a sports car and moving into an apartment complex that was populated, according to him, with nothing but buxom young women that walked around in bikinis all day.

Mom had her own unique mid-life crisis. She moved with my brother and sister into a zero lot line house (most would call it a duplex) and began to hang out with her friends, Bessie and Rose. The girls spent their weekends at a little bar in Mississippi called Hernando's Hideaway. Hernando's was quasi famous for appearing on the back of a ZZ Top album. Needless to say, this place was not the Roxbury.

Turns out that friend Bessie had an Uncle named Raymond that was at Hernando's on a regular basis. Mom had mentioned him a time or two, but Mom mentions a lot of things and I don't pay attention to ninety percent of them.

It's a Thursday night and one of the brothers at the house yells up the stairwell, "Chunk!! Phone!!"

{editor's note: Yes, in college, I was known as Chunk. Primarily due to my skill at vomiting.}

I pick up the phone and it's Mom. She gives me the obligatory "how are you" and "how are your grades" and then she tells me that she has a surprise. My mom always has a surprise, but usually it's something like "Nixon resigned!" or "Germany has surrendered, the war is over!" In other words, her surprises are anything but.

"What is it mom?" My fingers are crossed for winning the lottery.

"I got married!" Which means somebody hit the jackpot.

"Umm, Mom? To who? I didn't even know you were dating anybody."

"UNCLE RAYMOND! Here, talk to him," and she hands him the phone. The conversation went something like this.

ME: "Uh, hello?"

UNCLE RAYMOND: "Hello."

ME: "Uh, congratulations?"

UNCLE RAYMOND: "congratulations on yer schoolin'." (WTF!?!?!)

ME: "Uh, can I talk to my Mom?"

UNCLE RAYMOND: "M'k, bye son." (Double WTF!?!?!?!)

"Mom, who is this guy?"

"I told you, he is Bessie's uncle, I met him at Hernando's."

I was feeling a little ill at this point so I don't remember the rest of the conversation. I'm sure it made a lot of sense. A few weeks later, I actually met the man. I had come home for the weekend for something or other and in walks the door a wrinkled up, bald, fat, drunk. Turns out that they haven't bothered to move in together. He still lives across town in the house he owns with the previous wife. Mom introduces us. I'm polite but immediately mumble something about going to meet my friends. He steps in front of me, exhales his whiskey breath on me and says "You need any sparkin' money?" (Whatever that means.) I just kinda look at him. He pulls out his wallet and stuffs a sweaty ten dollar bill in my hand.

I'm not sure, but I may have said "thanks Dad" and bolted out the door. That was the only time I ever met Uncle Raymond. One month after that, Mom called me to tell me she got the marriage annulled. (But why Mom? Wasn't it love?) A month after that, she called to tell me that he died in some kind of alcoholic/diabetic induced coma. She has never mentioned his name again.