Timothy O’Grady - Children of Las Vegas: True Stories about Growing up in the World’s Playground

W e were happy, until we werent. I had the ideal childhood. We had our house, there were kids to play with. It was a good neighbourhood then. My dad was a chef at Treasure Island and my mom was a cashier at the Mirage, where she still is. They met when they were living at the same apartment complex downtown. They loved it here. Then one thing happened, and another, and another. It all just went downhill so fast.

My dad drank. I wasnt aware of that for a long time. I guess I was too young to tell. We had this little wishing-well barbecue pit in the backyard. We kept a board over it and when we took it off one day we found all these empty bottles my dad had put in there. He drank an eight-pack of beer before going to work one day and they fired him. That was the start, I think. Then my aunt moved in and all these arguments started. My mom and her would argue over something like towels. You took my dish rag! It would start like that and escalate until my mom would say, Get out of my house! Then my aunt would say, Oh yes, this is yours and this and this and this. Everything is yours! My mom would get mad at my dad if he didnt step in, but then if he did and took her side shed be mad that he was attacking her sister. My parents also argued about money. She had six different credit cards running up debt at the same time. She bought things, she gambled. She said she deserved it because she supported everyone else when my dad was out of work and she was everybodys slave. My aunt and her daughter would argue about who was a worse mother. Its a fiasco. My family has this thing where if something is wrong you have to out-scream the other person and bring up whatever you can from whats happened before to hurt them.

I think I was eleven when my aunt moved in with us. She lived with her daughter for a while, but got kicked out. My grandparents kicked her out too. She filled up their house with this junk she collects. They couldnt cope. My mom took her in then. My aunt was kind of wild when she was young. She used to go to work at a casino and then go out to bars. When my cousin was little she had the numbers of the bars her mom went to and knew all the bartenders names and their shifts. She had quite a few boyfriends the alcoholic she had my cousin with and a very controlling and rich Hispanic man, among others. She was engaged to a drug addict who told her he was a pilot. She still wound up paying for his flying lessons later. They got in an argument once and he ran over her with his car. She doesnt go to bars now. She takes meth, works part-time as a dealer at Boulder Station and gambles. She comes home with nothing, just blows her whole paycheque. And she still collects junk. She drives around looking for it and waits outside storage places so she can collect stuff people throw out.

After she moved in she and my mom started going to Sams Town casino on Boulder Highway. It was my grandparents favourite. My mom played bingo and then slots and my aunt played tables and slots. When my grandparents and aunt would leave my mom would stay on. Shed say shed be along soon but she didnt come and when they went back the next day shed still be sitting there. Shed have taken out all the money she could get on her A.T.M. and credit cards.

Maybe you cant pin everything on one thing, one person especially. Maybe its not fair. But its hard not to blame my aunt for all the bad things that happened. I remember my moms warmth. She took my aunt in because she was always such a caring, family-oriented type of person. The change was so stark. She snaps, shes defensive, she thinks everyones out to get her. My dad went to A.A. after she gave him an ultimatum and as he got better she got worse. She gets in these terrible fights with my aunt. My aunt has ripped chunks of her hair out of her head and my mom has hit my aunt so hard her false tooth has fallen out. It happens right in front of us. Ive been hit trying to break it up.

I found my moms straws and razor blades when I was in eighth grade. She snorts meth. I dont know when she started, but it was my aunt who brought it here. Shell go into the bathroom and turn on the faucet for thirty minutes and then deny she was doing it. Or else shell say she does it to lose weight or because she has to stay up and clean the house. You can hear her at night when shes high, cleaning and doing laundry. One time I came home and she and my aunt were screaming about whod used the last of it. My mom said, I wouldnt have to do it if I didnt have to clean up after my lazy children. So its our fault. She gets nosebleeds. Soon her septum will deviate.

I know shes miserable. She doesnt see anybody, or even want to. She just stays in her room and only comes out to go to work. She views the world in such a skewed way. We drove her all the way back to La Crosse, Wisconsin, where she was born, for her fiftieth birthday and she stood outside the house, yelling, All I want for my birthday is a gun so I can shoot myself. Well, now we have one because we had a break-in. She told my grandma that she has a loaded gun and that theres no reason for her to be here because my brother and I are old enough to look after ourselves now. One day well come home and she wont be there, she says. That, or shell kill my aunt.

Her and me were so close when I was little. I went to her for everything, then she wasnt there. Even if she is there its not her. Its a different person from the one I knew. Its like living with a stranger. Thats what hurts me the most. Shes so close, right next to me, and I want her so bad butshes not there.

When I was in eighth or ninth grade I started self-mutilating. It wasnt even until after Id stopped for a while that anyone noticed. I think at first I wanted to see if anyone would notice, then I kind of got used to doing it. Everything was changing and I couldnt fix it. When theyd argue I started to scratch, scratch until the skin broke, but then I started to get razor blades. Somehow it made me feel a little better. It was something I could control. Id cut my legs in places where I could hide it. One time I left the house and was walking along the street. A neighbour had one of those mailboxes with the little red flag sticking up. I broke that off and used it to cut myself. That left a pretty decent scar.

I got out of cutting because of my best friend. If I felt like I was losing it shed come right over in her car and wed just drive and drive along the freeway without thinking of where we were going until I felt all right. I basically lived with her family through my senior year in high school. Her mom calls me her middle child. They really saved me. There was just so much poison in my house. When my mom found out about the cutting she said, Youre sick. Youre whats wrong with this family. You need help. She just tears me down. She says Im overweight, unattractive, that Ill never find a boyfriend.

The whole city does that to you. You see those pictures of women and think if you dont fit that mould youre not what people want. Even the family shows have scantily clad women in them. Theyre the role models. The way men treat us is disgusting. People I hang out with even do it. They call us skanks, bitches, sluts. Its like were not people, were just some degraded sub-section.

I started drinking after I stopped cutting. I drank Captain Morgan, or my personal favourite, Southern Comfort. Id go over to this house belonging to friends of my brother and wed drink shots around the table. Id pass out sometimes. Once I fell down and broke two of my teeth. My friend and I figured out that during our first semester at college we were only sober seven days. They dealt weed from that house. Strangers would arrive at all hours. One of them kept a gun under his bed. Everything was very shady there, very negative. Like home. Ive slowed down a lot now, though. I like a clear head. I got scared too because I didnt want to be an alcoholic like my dad. I cant tell you not to, because I was doing the same thing, he said, but I could see that for the first time he was disappointed in me. Ive been lucky, though. Ive had help. I dont know what would have happened if I didnt. My friend made me realize that just because I couldnt find stability at home didnt mean I couldnt find it somewhere else. I had a wonderful teacher who gave me the compliments my mother wasnt able to. That made school a kind of refuge. I was an honours student. My brothers been very good, too. Maybe he didnt get the full impact of it. He had sports and I kind of protected him a little when he was younger. Now we look after each other when we can. Its hard to work full time as I do and also go to school and then come home to all that tension, but he and I just got Netflix and we tune out together with that.