The Hard Stuff

CHAPTER 1

BACK TO DETROIT

My mother was a pragmatist. Of French ancestry, she was born in Detroit on November 15, 1927. Family lore has it that her mother’s parents owned property in Paris, but immigrated to Sarnia, Ontario, just north of Detroit. They relocated to the Motor City between the world wars because my grandfather Max was a bricklayer, and there was a lot of new building going on there.

In the ’40s and ’50s, Mable Evelyn Dyell was a real looker. She was a natural brunette, but dyed her hair blond, and had a great figure. Marilyn Monroe was the ideal, and Mable came close with her voluptuous hips, full lips, and platinum hair set in the latest styles. She understood her sexual power, and had a sly grin and wink of the eye that made you feel like you were the most important person in the world.

But she was also tough. She told me that when she was young, her father abused her, and she wouldn’t let anyone abuse her ever again.

Once, later in her life when she was semiretired and living in Florida, a friend’s enraged husband came into her beauty shop and threatened her with a pistol. She looked him straight in the eye, and told him to put the gun away before she stuck it up his ass. He did. She was fearless, and also exceedingly lucky that the guy wasn’t crazy enough to shoot her.

Hardened by deep poverty and with eleven brothers and sisters—which meant no one got enough attention or food—she developed a resolute way of getting things done that I’d like to think I inherited. She was from the Great Depression era, and had a harsh life growing up in pre- and post–World War II Detroit. She had persevered through hard times, and her work ethic was written in stone.

My father, Stanley George Andrew Kambes, was of Greek stock and was also born in Detroit on March 16, 1926. His father, George Karoumbus, also came to America as an émigré from the island of Corfu. His surname was Americanized at Ellis Island. My father’s father was a chef and owned a restaurant, George’s, at Monroe Avenue and Beaubien Street in what is now known as Greektown. His family only spoke Greek in the home and well into his adult life he carried a pocket dictionary to refine his English.

I was born Wayne Stanley Kambes in Detroit on April 30, 1948, at Lincoln Hospital on Twenty-Fifth Street. We lived nearby on West Grand Boulevard. My earliest memory is of a single moment lying in bed with my mother under soft lamplight with my head on her arm, feeling absolutely peaceful, safe, and loved. (I took acid in the sixties, and had a hallucination of being in my crib as a baby. Later I asked my mother if there were baby birds painted on the headboard of my crib, and she confirmed it.) My sister Kathi arrived on May 5, 1952, when I was four. Otherwise my memories of childhood begin when I was around five, and we lived on Harsens Island.

Harsens is a small, marshy island on the north side of Lake St. Clair, in Anchor Bay, about 50 miles north of Detroit, and just across the river from the town of Algonac. The only access to the island was a couple of small auto-ferries. In the winter, days or weeks went by without ferry service because the river was frozen.

The island was a paradise. The woods and swamps were my natural wonderland. In the summers, there was swimming in the river; in winter, the canals and marshes froze, and I could ice skate all over the island. We lived there for about three years.

My father had served in the Marines in World War II, and fought in the horrific South Pacific campaigns. He was wounded, and had shrapnel in his back and leg. When asked about his job in the Marines on job applications, his response was, “paid killer.” He returned from the war a profoundly damaged man.

I remember him talking about his experience only once when I was very young. We were visiting some of my parents’ friends, a Filipino woman named Sita and her husband, who was also a Marine. He and my father were drinking, and they got into an animated discussion of battles they’d been in, vividly recounting how the planes were strafing the beach and the shells that were landing around them. They talked loud and late into the night, but I never heard my father talk about the war again.

My mother and father fell in love as teenagers before the war. They were introduced by one of my mother’s brothers, my uncle Donald. My mother waited for my father while he went off to serve. My mother said he was “different” after the war.

In those days, they called it shell shock. After he returned, they married and soon he became a full-blown alcoholic. My mother repeated the tales ad nauseam: how he fell over on the bed, passed out drunk on top of me or my sister when she was a baby, and how he could have killed us. The usual litany of bad behavior that accompanies serious boozing. I was aware that he was my father, but emotionally, I draw a blank. I do remember learning to spell my first word, “B-A-R. That’s where Daddy goes.”

Stan had invested in a few acres of property with one of my uncles, and was building a house for us. We lived in a trailer on the site while he was building. I liked living in the trailer; it was cozy, and I felt safe. One night my father and his buddies went frog hunting, and brought home a couple dozen big frogs for a fried frog leg feast. He dropped the still-living frogs off at the trailer, and went to the local tavern with his pals. The frogs were in a few large paper grocery bags on the kitchen counter. In the middle of the night, they escaped the wet bags and were croaking and hopping all over the living room and kitchen. Big, bellowing, bleeding toads were everywhere. My mother was hysterical. She woke me up from a sound sleep, screaming, “Wayne, help! Do something about the frogs!” I thought it was the funniest thing I’d ever seen. My mom was distraught, and was pleading with me to save her from the frogs. Which, of course, I did. Life in the country was good.

I marveled at my father’s building skills. With a few friends, he dug the footings, poured the concrete foundations, and began framing out what would be our new home. He seemed to know how to do anything and everything. In these moments, he was my hero. He’d be sweating out in the sun with his shirt off, drinking beer, and I just thought he was the best. My father was a professional electrician. I thought it was the greatest thing ever when he strapped on his climbing spurs and flew up telephone poles to connect the power to the property.

A hundred yards or so behind our trailer, my uncles had stored the parts for several pre-fab homes: completed wall sections and roofs, interior partitions, doors, windows, lumber, and roofing supplies. They were going to assemble them at some future point and create a housing development on the property they owned. The walls and roof sections were stacked like cards, leaning against each other, creating perfect forts and hideaways for me and my friends to play in. I was probably seven years old.

One morning, I decided we needed a fire in the fort, and got some matches to start one. The house sections were covered with black tar paper, which ignited almost immediately. At first, I thought I could put the fire out. I had a Tinkertoy container, a cardboard tube with a metal bottom. I ran to the marsh, filled it with water, and ran back to the fort where the fire had spread. Another trip, and another. I was running so fast in the muddy swamp that my shoes came off. I was crying; this was getting out of hand, and it was my fault. The cardboard tube was soaked through and disintegrated in my hands. My friends all ran home. The fire grew out of control, and there was nothing else to do but go tell the grown-ups what was happening. I was in a terrible state of overload. My memory blanks out, but I do recall a lot of fire engines and firefighters. It was a really big deal.

The fire went on all day and into the evening. Fire companies from the surrounding communities joined in to bring down the conflagration. My mother told me that I had to meet with some child-psychologist types afterward to determine if I was a pyromaniac. The authorities determined I wasn’t dangerous, just a kid who shouldn’t have been playing with fire. I felt really bad about all the damage and trouble I caused. One of the firemen showed me the burns he received on his arms fighting the fire. He seemed to be proud of it.

Once my father was hired to wire a hobbyist’s massive model train setup. He took me to work with him and I was captivated with the trains. The man’s setup had mountains, cities, roads and rivers, dozens of locomotives, and hundreds of cars. It initiated a love of both model and actual trains that has stayed with me my whole life.

My father read a lot, and I couldn’t wait to learn to read. He could draw a rocket ship if I asked, and he was an excellent Lincoln Logs constructor. He would sit quietly in an easy chair and read and drink for hours. We all lived in the same house, but beyond that, he is a shadow. I have no memory of him holding me or comforting me. I can’t see his face. I don’t know his body or his smell. He is unavailable to me.

One day, out of the blue, my mother sat me down to tell me that she and my father were breaking up, and that we’d be moving back to Detroit. My world collapsed. I loved living on Harsens Island. The idea of moving back to the city was the worst thing I could imagine.

Moving day was a nightmare. We left the island on a beautiful summer day, just like so many others. I hadn’t known this kind of pain before. I knew that things were changing for the worst, but there was nothing I could do about it. We drove into Detroit, to my Aunt Dorothy and Uncle Herb Farah’s large brick house on the northwest side of town. We were pretty tight with the Farahs, and often spent time with them. They would come up to the island in the summer, and I’d have a ball with my cousins, Hal, Michael, Poppy, and Cynthia. I loved being around them. They were loud and raucous, but good kids.

By the time we arrived at their house, the weather had changed dramatically. Tornado warnings were issued, and all of us kids were sent to bed as the wind kicked up. It was a hell of a day. My family was ripped apart, my father was gone, and I was taken out of the world I loved and thrown into my cousins’ dark bedroom with the threat of imminent death. Tornados are terrifying. Without a storm cellar or basement, you’re at the mercy of the elements. But the Farahs didn’t have a cellar.

We survived the storm, and afterward my mother, Kathi, and I moved in with Mable’s parents on Livernois Avenue. Grandma and Grandpa lived in a wood-frame duplex that was massive to me. We all lived in the upper unit on the second floor, along with my big strapping uncles, Max and Dennis. I loved waking up in their bed between the two of them with the bright sunlight streaming in the room. I had never felt safer. They were supermen to me. Smart, handsome grown men both with a great irreverent sense of humor. On the other hand, my grandpa was a mean alcoholic and was drunk most of the time. He was loud and a bully, and he scared me when he was around. He’d barge through the house, usually with some drama: a broken finger or black eye from a barroom fight.

A few months later, my mother found a small one-bedroom, second-floor apartment she could afford on Michigan Avenue at Thirty-First Street. It had a room in the front for her first beauty shop. In 1943, when she was 15, she had attended the Dearborn School of Beauty Culture, where she’d earned her license as a hairstylist. She had left school in the eighth grade, and thereafter was self-educated. She named her shop La Belle’s Beauty Salon, and there was room for three chairs. It was upstairs from Vi’s Sweet Shop, an ice cream and soda fountain with a jukebox.

My sister Kathi and I shared the bedroom in the back of the apartment, which always smelled of permanent wave solution. Mable slept on a hideaway couch in the living room. My sister and I were both assigned small tasks to help out in the beauty shop. One of my jobs was to remove the little perforated papers from the curling rods so they could dry out and then be reused.

Mable was raised in the Catholic Church, and she insisted that I attend Mass at St. Hedwig’s nearby on Junction Avenue. She never went with me; she always slept in on Sundays. Kathi was too little, so I went alone. This was a meaningless exercise for me because the Mass was in Latin, and I had absolutely no idea what was going on. Everyone kneeled, so I kneeled; everyone stood up, so I stood up. I didn’t know any of the songs they sang, and based on the mumbled singing, neither did they. I did get the idea that love was good, and if I sinned, I would burn in hell for forever.

Mable believed in the American dream; that with determination and hard work, she could achieve a quality life. She had gone hungry as a kid, and she was committed to making sure that her children would never do the same. In fact, she was obsessed with making sure we weren’t hungry. She used an egg timer to force my sister and me to finish all the food on our plates. If the food hadn’t been eaten when the timer rang, there was hell to pay. Pavlov in reverse. I was in my forties before I retired from the clean-plate club.

In our early days on Michigan Avenue, meals were pretty uninspiring. To her credit, though, we always had something to eat. Campbell’s Tomato Soup with rice added to make it more filling was one of my least favorites.

Around this time, I couldn’t wait to learn to read. I suppose it was natural for me to emulate my father’s love of reading. I wanted to read the Sunday newspaper comics. I’d even read the labels on cleaning supplies. My mother bought a set of Encyclopedia Britannica, and I could find information on anything I was interested in. She also had a series of booklets on child-rearing. These I found especially intriguing. I sensed that the books on troubled children had something to do with me, but I wasn’t sure what. I also really liked Life and Look magazines. My mother had them in her shop for the customers, and I’d devour them. Between the magazines and the encyclopedias, I knew there was a big world out there. Somewhere.

Many times, I suffered bottomless fear in the apartment. My mother would work all day in the shop, and at night she worked a shift as a barmaid in a club on Michigan Avenue. She would leave for work after I went to bed, but I’d wake up and worry about where my mother was. I was afraid of what might happen to me and my sister all alone. I didn’t know which bar Mable was working in, and I didn’t know when or if she would ever be home again. This was chilling; my fear was to the bone. I felt a great responsibility to take care of Kathi (who slept through the night like a rock). Nothing bad ever happened, but the damage was done.

One day my father showed up and had a talk with my mother. She told me he’d borrowed 50 dollars for a deal he had going in South America. We never saw him again, and he never paid any child support.

I decided I would beat my father up if I ever saw him again. My mother encouraged this kind of talk, and I cast myself as her avenging angel. She called him a “rat” and a “bum” for running out on us. I vowed never to marry, so I’d never have to go through the pain of a divorce. But except for resenting my father for abandoning us, I was okay, and felt pretty secure most of the time.