As I mentioned in a previous post during the mid 70’s I was being treated for Hodgkin’s disease. I was nineteen and had just lost my baby Cory, seven months old to a crib death and within six months was told that I had cancer which landed me at the Toronto General Hospital with Dr. George Scott. Over the next, few years I was in survival mode being treated with massive doses of radiation and chemotherapy. I was still in school, holding down a job at the Le Coq D’Or Tavern, the heart and soul of Toronto’s disco era on Yonge Street and still doing a few modelling shows all while taking treatments. The modelling helped me keep some focus on my appearance and health and I was always a clothes horse, a pair of shoes for every outfit in my closet. Lost all my beautiful hair but was able to wear very lavish wigs to cover the baldness. I remember waking up one morning and finding streams of hair on my pillow and feeling my head which was so soft and totally stripped of even the hair follicle. It was terrifying especially, because no one told me that this would happen.
I was at the last stages of my radiation treatments for this period. So, I was functioning and one night decided that I was going out to listen to some music, dance and just hang out at the club. I can still see the outfit I wore. Baby pink bell bottom pants, halter top and fuzzy baby pink bolero to hide the radiation marks. I wore my long wig and I was looking pretty hot and it is in this outfit that I met my first husband Glenn.
He was this six four black American up from Buffalo, New York. I spotted him as soon as he walked into the club, and he spotted me. Took him about half an hour to work his way over to my table with an opening line of “hey, pretty lady why are you all by yourself” my quick response was “I’m not all by myself I have a room full of people.“ He then proceeded to sit down and we talked about him mostly. I wasn’t about to get to personal about myself after all, I was just covering over a very sick shell playing at being well. We danced, and I truly enjoyed his height and aura of dominance. He was a Vietnam vet and at the time of him telling me about it I thought how exciting and romantic to have gone overseas and fought a war. Little did I know?
Our relationship progressed from that chance meeting to several dates over a few months and everyday telephone calls. He found me exotic, different and very sexual and I found someone to take me away from the insanity of what had been my life up to that point. I was in love with being in love and believed for once here is someone who is going to take care of me and protect me from all harm. For a girl who had never travelled it was so exciting traveling back and forth between Toronto and Buffalo. My best friend Di and I would even hitchhike between borders. [There are some very interesting stories on hitchhiking for another day]. When three months later, Glenn asked to marry me… OMG the dream of a lifetime to be married isn’t that the normal progression of a normal life how could I possible turn that down.
The day of my wedding, I’m sitting in my mother’s kitchen bawling my eyes out and thinking to myself, I am making a serious mistake, but it was too late to change this course. I was not prepared to be whisked of that day to Buffalo to live and when I arrived it was culture shock. His mother hated me; I was not one of crowd. She was very skin colour conscious and in her mind I was a high yellow, stuck up slip of a girl with no street smarts. We lived just outside the projects. After a few months I realized that Glenn and his friends had some very serious mental health issues due to their tour in Vietnam. As veterans they were all very messed up. They all suffered from serious (PTSD) Post-traumatic stress disorder. A mental health condition that’s triggered by a terrifying event such as war, symptoms included flashbacks, nightmares and severe anxiety, as well as uncontrollable thoughts about the event. He and his friends drank and did hard core drugs a lot, just to cope with getting through their days. They talked about the shooting, and killing of the Viet Con all the time, his best friend Bennie who before going to war was in med school and was a medic during the war shot and killed himself shortly after our wedding.
After about eight months, our relationship became very strained and I suspected another women. I also did not follow the rules of black community, instead of working downtown Buffalo where every other person of colour worked, I got a job in white East Aurora, NY. Glenn was always suspicious and paranoid about everything especially when he drank and one evening after coming home from work I walked into his fist and ultimately the hospital. I told him before getting married that if he ever put his hands on me that that would be the end and when this happened, a week after my recovery I packed up my dog and few belongings and told him to drive me to Toronto. He dropped me off at a friend’s home and that was the last I ever saw of him. His parting words were “I hope you are kidding” and then three or four months later I received a notice of divorce on grounds of abandonment which I did not contest and was free again… Lots more happened during that one year period, being assaulted coming home one night, seeing a man get gunned down in the middle of the street, refused an apartment because I was black and just generally not understanding and being overwhelmed by the American black white conflict. I came from Canada, I was off mixed race and racism existed but it was subtle, with American’s it was in your face front and central. I wasn’t tough enough for that world and I realized it and got out. End of marriage number one and upon reflection it was a marriage of desperation on my part, I wanted so to be loved, cherished and normal with the husband, little white house with the picket fence and 2.5 children. The Barbie dream… but I’m no Barbie and this marriage was a lesson learned and I was quick enough to not become a victim for years as so many other women of that time did. Marriage number one ended but who’s counting….
