EVIL CLOWN IN THE WASHING MACHINE

My step father was a big and imposing man who almost always had an angry countenance and was quick to explode into a shouting rant that was so loud your ears would ring.  If something seemed good and fun like the time when I was ten years old and we stayed down the Jersey Shore, he made it sickening and ugly so much so I just wanted to go home because I was so embarrassed and ashamed of being in this twisted family with a screaming maniac.

My stepfather enjoyed watching the World War II documentaries with the Nazis and the death camps which was awkward because my family came from a Jewish background.  He thought it was hilarious giving me the Hitler salute and I just thought he was a big fucking asshole though at the time, there was nothing I could do about it.

I was always hoping my mother would divorce him, but even after he lost his job my mother told me she had no intention of leaving him even though he was out of work, an alcoholic and an abusive husband who regularly beat my mother and trashed our home.  My mother called the cops on me a number of times, but she never called the cops on the guy who slapped her, punched her in the face and broke her glasses, and threw her against the wall and made her cry every week.

My step father said he knew karate and acted like a tough guy, but I saw him in a fight getting his ass kicked by three 19 year olds and heard some local business owner and his son kicked his ass for good measure.  I even kicked his ass at 17 despite all his supposed karate training.

One moment I remember is when I was 12 or 13, there was a periodic beeping downstairs in the washroom and we were all afraid to go down there.  I said, "What if there is an evil clown downstairs with a horn blowing to get us to go downstairs into his trap?"

With disgust my stepfather went downstairs and you could hear him moving around until the sound of a beep resonated and he came running up the stairs terrified and I could not help but burst out laughing.  Later, I went downstairs alone and found out the beeping was due to a low battery on a smoke alarm, not a maniacal clown with a circus horn bent on murder.

It turns out the only person my stepfather could beat up was my mother and even the idea of a homicidal circus clown  in our washing room scared him to distraction.

That is what they call the banality of evil.